In an effort to close the gender attainment gap, schools could support pupils by encouraging them to think beyond traditional gender stereotypes, according to researchers.

New research by the University of Cambridge reveals that while girls outperformed boys overall, there was a link between achievement and pupils’ approach to gender.

Boys who defy traditional masculine stereotypes appear to achieve higher grades in their GCSE exams than boys who embrace them.

The picture is more nuanced for girls, but those identified by researchers as tomboys tended to do better at maths, while those conforming to traditional feminine norms risked falling behind academically and becoming “invisible” in the overall statistics.

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Junlin Yu, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and lead author of the paper, said: “Among boys, in particular, we found that those who resist gender norms were in the majority, but at school it often doesn’t feel that way.

Tackling gender stereotypes

“Teachers and parents can help by encouraging pupils to feel that they won’t be ridiculed or marginalised if they don’t conform to traditional gender roles. Our findings certainly suggest that resistance to stereotypes is fast becoming less the exception, and more the rule.”

A shift from “boys versus girls” to “which boys and which girls” reveals a more complex picture of the educational gender gap.

Yu added: “There has been a lot of justifiable concern about low attainment among boys, but we really need to move on from looking at averages, and ask which specific groups of boys and girls are falling behind.

“These findings suggest that part of the answer is linked to how pupils ‘do’ gender at school.”

Almost 600 students aged 14 to 16 were asked to complete questionnaires designed to reveal their conformity to traditional gender roles and their motivation in English and maths.

Participants subsequently sat their GCSEs at the end of Year 11, and researchers obtained their grades in English and maths.

Overall, the average grade for girls was 5.75 and for boys it was 5.6, but analysis showed variety linked to the questionnaire findings.

Researchers sorted the participants into seven categories based on what the questionnaires had indicated.

For boys, the categories were: resister boys, cool guys and tough guys.

For girls, they were: relational girls, modern girls, tomboys and wild girls.

The two categories of boys who strongly embraced masculine norms - cool guys and tough guys - performed worst overall, with average grades of 5.1 and 5.4 respectively, compared with 5.8 for resister boys.

Resisters made up 69 per cent of the sample of boys, and researchers defined them as typically resisting traditional ideas about masculinity.

Cool guys (21 per cent) were defined as competitive risk-takers concerned with appearance and romantic success, while tough guys (10 per cent) had an emotionally hard image and were self-reliant.

The researchers suggested the cool guys may not have put as much effort into their work so they could preserve the illusion that they could outperform others if they tried.

The study says that a large sub-group of girls, who conform fairly rigidly to some traditional feminine norms, could be at risk academically.

The researchers said these girls are often “invisible” in broad surveys of attainment by gender that show girls performing well as a group.

They suggested that tomboys performing better in maths than English may indicate that “doing well in a female-typed subject might be viewed as incompatible with their gender role”.

Researchers found that pupils typically belonged to one of seven gender profiles that blended feminine and masculine characteristics. They classified these as:

• ‘Resister boys’ (69 per cent of boys): typically resist traditional ideas about masculinity.
• ‘Cool guys’ (21 per cent): competitive risk-takers, but concerned with appearance and romantic success.
• ‘Tough guys’ (10 per cent): have an emotionally ‘hard’ image, self-reliant.
• ‘Relational girls’ (32 per cent of girls): shun appearance norms, comfortable connecting with others emotionally.
• ‘Modern girls’ (49 per cent): concerned with appearance, but also self-reliant and emotionally distant.
• ‘Tomboys’ (12 per cent): uninterested in feminine qualities, often regarded as ‘one of the lads.’
• ‘Wild girls’ (7 per cent): embrace masculine behaviours, but also display an exaggeratedly ‘feminine’ appearance.

The research is published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.