Vocational GCSEs may be leaving girls at an “educational disadvantage”

Girls who take applied subjects like health and social care at GCSE may be facing educational disadvantage as a result, research shows.

According to researchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies and the UCL Institute of Education, young people who took applied GCSEs were less likely to stay on at A-level and to take ‘facilitating’ A-levels favoured by prestigious universities.

Vocational subjects appeared to put both boys and girls at a disadvantage, even after taking into account the fact that less privileged young people and those with lower prior Key Stage test scores were more likely to take applied subjects at GCSE.

The figures come from analysis from a Next Steps study of 16,000 people born in England in 1989-90, and from the National Pupil Database. The research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council.

This disadvantage linked to applied GCSEs was particularly strong for girls.

In particular, the researchers found that girls studying applied GCSEs were less likely to take ‘facilitating’ A-levels such as the sciences and maths. These findings suggest that girls could be held back if their schools encourage them to take those options.

Vanessa Moulton, the lead author of the research paper, published by CLS, said applied subjects can be particularly unhelpful for girls who want to progress in education: “Applied subjects are particularly strongly gendered, with girls and boys taking completely different subjects.

“Essentially what you see is predominantly working class girls taking subjects such as health and social care, which do not necessarily enhance their future prospects. Boys are more likely to take subjects such as engineering or information and communication technology, which may be less limiting post-16.”

The research also examined whether pupils had taken ‘EBacc’ subjects for GCSE, and found pupils studying them were more likely to stay in education after 16. This was particularly true for girls.

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