Gender differentials and subject choice in Maltese secondary schools

Abstract

The discussion here centres on the critical case of the production of gender differentials in Maltese secondary schooling. The Maltese secondary school system, including both the state and the private sector has always been single-sex. Mixed classes were introduced in the state primary schools in the early 1980s to facilitate the extremes of streaming (up to seven streams per year group) currently practised in Malta. Moreover all secondary schooling is selective with the state sector providing a tripartite model of grammar (Junior Lyceum), (area) secondary modern and trade schools. The private sector (catering for thirty per cent of all children) provides a grammar-oriented curriculum with some soft options for less-able pupils. In this unusual case, able girls in single-sex schools are in fact achieving on a par with boys. In some cases as, for example, when private school girls are compared to state school boys, the aspirations of the girls are higher than those of the boys. However, despite getting the results, the girls are not opting for perceived difficult subjects such as Mathematics. Since physics has become compulsory (1982) for entry into the state sixth form there has been an increase in the uptake of physical sciences by girls. Private sixth forms do not require the Physics Ordinary Level and thus entry to the University can be secured by this route. The introduction of physics as a compulsory subject in secondary schools has seen a dramatic change in the number of girls who take physics at Ordinary and Advanced Level and who then take up scientific courses at the University. Recently, the medical courses have had a fifty per cent intake of females, but engineering remains under-subscribed by them. Kelly makes a tentative suggestion that one of the methods of ensuring that girls do not drop the physical sciences at fourteen, could be through the compulsory curriculum. Whilst the compulsory curriculum, as is the case of Malta and Physics, can increase the entry of girls into scientific professions, it still remains true to say that girls have not necessarily changed their attitudes towards and within science. In Malta, chemistry is now an area in which girls are not entering, thereby ultimately restricting their entry into the physical sciences. It will be dsmonstrated below that although the combination of single-sex schooling with physics as a compulsory subject for Sixth Form entry, has indeed seen a large female proportion of science candidates in the secondary schools, this pattern is reversed in Sixth Form. As Kelly finds, despite getting the grades, girls are not accepting the physical and mathematical sciences in their cluster of attributes. This case should serve as an indicator of the success or otherwise of implementing a compulsory curriculum.