Identity, class and girls achievement

While girls do better not all girls are successful there are class differences in girls achievemnet e.g. in 2013 only 40.6% of girls eligable for free school meals achieved 5 A*-C GCSEs while 67.5% of girls not eligable for free school meals did 

Archer et al -

one reason for differences is conflict between working class girls feminine identities and values of school:

Symbolic capital used to understand conflict - symbolic capital is the status recognition and sense of worth we obtain from others - by performing working class feminine identities girls gained symbolic capital from peers. However this conflicts with school stopping them achieveing educational and economical capital 

Several strategies girls follow to create valued sense of self e.g. hyper hetrosexual feminine identity, having boyfriend and being loud 

Many girls invest time effort and money to be desirable hyper-hetrosexual feminine identities e.g. one girl spent £40 a week from baby sitting on her appearence. Construct identities based on black urban American and **** styles 

This feminine identity bought status from female peer grouo and stopped them being ridiculed for wearing wrong thing, however brought conflict in school for having wrong appearence e.g. jewellry, makeup etc. as teachers see their focus on appearence as distraction from education 

led to school defining girls as different and unable to achieve so less worthy of respect - Bourdieu - symbolic violence - the harm done by denying some symbolic capital e.g. defining culture as worthless 

Archer - schools ideal female pupil identity is desexualised middle class - excludes many working class girls 

Boyfriends gained girls symbolic capital however got in the way of school work and lowered girls aspirations - loosing interest in going to university, studying mascuine subjects 

Instead girls aspired to settle down have children and work locally in working class feminie jobs e.g. child care 

One girl had to drop out of school due to pregnancy 

Working class girls adopt loud feminie identities that often led to them beig outspoken independent and assertive e.g. questioning teachers authority. this faild to conform to schoold stereotype of ideal female pupil identity as passive to authority 

Brought conflict with teachrs who saw behaviour as aggressive not assertive 

Working class girls faced with dilema to gain symbolic capital from peers by conforming to hyper hetrosexual feminie identity or gaining educational capital by rejecting their working class identity and conforming to schools middle class notions of ideal female pupil 

Some girls try to cope with this by seeing themselves as good underneath, this self image reflect s girls struggle to achieve sense of self worth in education system that devalues working class feminie identities 

Archer - working class feminine identities ond educational success conflict as their feminine identities are major cause of under achievement 

Some working class girls do achieve and go onto higher education - Evans - in study of 21 working class sixth form girls in south london - Girls wanted to go to uni for families not themselves 

Girls motivation reflects working class feminine identities - Skeggs - caring big part of identity and girls in Evans's study wanted to stay home and contribute to families 

Economic necessicty reason for stayinig at home - cost and fear of getting into debt issue for many working class students in deciding what university to apply to, while living at home higher education more affordable limiting choice of uni  - living at home was also positive choice and aspect of working class identities - Archer - preference for local is key feature of working class habitus as girls wanted local and familiar 

Gender identity plays large part in relative lack of success compared with middle class girls - even more successful working class girls the caring aspect of identity makes them want to stay at home to study and so self exclusion from further success