Anomie Theory

Anomie Theory

We have already referred to this theory when we looked at gender socialisation within the family group. Specifically, we referred to it in terms of evidence for the influence of primary socialisation on subject choice and differential educational achievement. However, it is clear that, in terms of secondary socialisation, this type of theory may have some currency in terms of explaining the problems faced by women in our society / educational system. We can, therefore, examine it in a little more depth in this particular section.

As you should be aware, in the past, the sociology of education has looked at examination differences between males and females to illustrate various outcomes of the hidden curriculum. Over the past few years, however, both males and females seem to perform equally well (or equally badly) in both GCSE and A-level examinations.

This has led to the focus of sociological attention moving away from educational performance to a less apparent manifestation of the hidden curriculum, namely a gendered curriculum (in simple terms, the idea that males and females are encouraged to study different subjects). Some subjects, it is argued, are seen as male / masculine, some as female / feminine and some as gender neutral (that is, they are seen as being neither wholly masculine nor wholly feminine subjects).

Over the past 100 years, explicit curriculum differences have been progressively eliminated. As Taylor et al ("Sociology In Focus", 1996), for example, note:

"The 1902 Education Act made domestic subjects such as cookery and needlework compulsory for girls but not for boys…During the 20^th century…the tradition of girls doing home economics and boys woodwork and metalwork has been largely replaced by technology for all pupils.".

One explanation for the fact that girls perform as well as boys academically but tend to avoid certain subjects) is that when girls enter education they have a problem:

a. They are taught, as part of the secondary socialisation process in schools, that they are the equal of boys and that their eventual achievement will be on merit (that is, girls are not actively discriminated against - although there is evidence of passive forms of gender discrimination).

b. Their primary socialisation has taught them that there are some areas of the social world that are not considered, in our society, to be feminine.

In this respect, the problem for women is largely one of how to resolve the tension between these two important sets of social pressure. How, in effect, to conform to the demand that their educational efforts match those of their male peers while, at the same time, retaining a sense of femininity and, by extension, avoiding deviant labels amongst their peers.

Similarly, males are also faced with the problem outlined above; they too have to attempt to resolve the contradiction inherent in the idea of "achievement through merit" while simulatenously retaining a sense of masculine identity - one that is not undermined, in terms of their peers, through the association with subject choices that are "not masculine".

This theory keys into a number of further ideas surrounding the educational system, such as the nature of intelligence debate (is it inherited / is it socially constructed?), the social creation of gendered identities and, of the course, the hidden curriuculum debate.