Example Answer for Question 2 Paper 1: A Level Sociology, June 2017 (AQA)

Section A – Education: Q2 [6 marks]

This question requires that you identify and elaborate on three distinct in-school factors that may explain why either girls or boys opt for different subjects. Specify which in-school factor you are referring to, such as the influence of their schools, teachers, subjects or textbooks.

School textbooks may reinforce gender role socialisation. For example, Kelly found a predominance of images of boys in science books which packaged the subject towards a male target audience.

Teachers may label as ‘feminine’ those subjects which, like health and social care, require empathy. This could happen unintentionally during open evenings, etc. This could lead girls to actually believe that they are predisposed to having a greater natural ability in stereotypical feminine subjects, which is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Traditionally, girls were likely to have been socialised by their teachers to avoid studying subjects which might lead to a career in male-dominated professions (e.g. maths, science and technology), because they presumed this to be an unlikely female career path.

Please Note: These answers have been produced without the knowledge of the mark scheme and merely reflect my attempt at producing a model answer on the day of the exam.