Blog posts for ‘Media Influence’ 
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Stating the obvious...
Monday 14 May 2012
Categories: Education, Family Relationships, Health, Media Influence, Parenting
Yes I know that a great deal of research is extremely useful but sometimes when I read newspaper headlines I just want to scream “Well obviously!” And at other times I seriously doubt the intelligence of the headline writers.
Two recent examples illustrate the cause of my frustration. The most recent concerned people who stay on in education longer. This, the newspapers report, “makes people smarter” and “results in superior memory skills later in life”. Isn’t it more likely...
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Why should girls' schools have to make their case? A riposte to Lord Lucas
Sunday 29 April 2012
Categories: Careers, Education, Media Influence
If you read today’s Times or Daily Telegraph, you will see headlines that suggest that girls’ schools are a dying breed: “Pull your socks up or you’ll die out, peer tells girls’ schools”; “Girls’ schools ‘going out of fashion’, expert warns” – although the print edition of The Times has the alternative title “Girls’ schools give chauvinist peer a lesson in single-sex education”. Read the articles themselves and you will realise that they contain the opinions – and...
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Girls, maths and the "Cinderella attitude"
Monday 12 March 2012
Categories: Education, Media Influence, Role Models
I disagree entirely with Lady Conran‘s assertion that girls deliberately choose to limit their capabilities in Mathematics, believing their ‘prince charming’ will deal with that sort of thing. (The Times 8/3/12)) The standards achieved by girls at GCSE are very similar to those achieved by boys and there is no evidence that girls are more likely to dismiss the importance of mathematics than boys.
Parents and society do not help the image of the subject; the readiness of a large...
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What the Dickens?
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Categories: Education, Literacy, Media Influence
On the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, his biographer, Claire Tomalin, claims that, “Today’s children have very short attention spans because they are being raised on dreadful TV programmes”. There ARE some dreadful television programmes today, as there were in the 1970s as I grew up, but there are some brilliant ones too. I wonder how many young people saw the excellent adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ at Christmas, and were encouraged to try reading the novel...
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Maths - geekdom or artistry?
Friday 3 February 2012
Categories: Education, Media Influence, Role Models
I wonder if it’s time for a rethink. I’ve always believed that the reason many girls – particularly those in co-ed schools – tend to dislike maths is because anything they find difficult brings about a fear of failure. I have taught girls maths for years and experience tells me that, to succeed, girls need to feel safe – safe to make mistakes, safe to admit their misunderstandings and thus safe to fail.
I thought this meant that the main thing girls need to succeed in maths is...
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Body image - it's all about perception
Friday 27 January 2012
Categories: Health, Media Influence, Self-esteem
Young people have always been concerned about their appearance, but this generation is under greater pressure to look good than ever before. On average British children are spending between six and eight hours a day looking at screens, during much of which they are being bombarded with images of the “beautiful”. Men’s and women’s magazines present distorted images of human perfection. At present the average model weighs 23% less than the average British woman, so it is no surprise that at...
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Seeking role models for women's sport
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Categories: Extra curricular, Health, Media Influence, Role Models
I am encouraged by the recent press coverage in response to the BBC Sports Personality shortlist, particularly concerning the responsibility the media have for raising the profile of women’s sport.
Last week I turned to the section in a Sunday newspaper laughingly entitled sport. Of the 20 pages dedicated to sport I found no mention of women other than an article in which an American skier in her twenties had accompanied a much younger skier to his high school dance. The point? ...
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Don't strip the curriculum of subjects that matter...
Saturday 19 November 2011
Categories: Education, Media Influence
Over the past two decades, many schools have become slaves to league tables. The pressure, from government and elsewhere, to measure success in terms of examination results has been immense. Much attention is focussed on predetermined ‘core’ areas, namely Mathematics, English and Science.
Of course, giving young people a sound grasp of numeracy and literacy is crucial. They would be seriously disadvantaged without it.
But what has all the target-chasing done to our national...
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Toxic childhood?
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Categories: Growing up, Media Influence, Parenting, Role Models
Surely parents should pay attention when over 200 teachers, academics, authors and charity leaders issue dire warnings? A group of them is urging the government to take action (The Telegraph Sept 11) because they believe that children’s wellbeing and mental health is being undermined by the pressures of modern life and by the culture of “too much too soon”.
I would argue differently –
What really is childhood? – dear little innocent girls and boys playing innocent games until...
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Bring back the cane?
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Categories: Education, Media Influence
A recent YouGov poll commissioned by the Times Educational Supplement suggests that almost half of parents would welcome the return of corporal punishment for ‘very bad behaviour’. Across the representative sample of over 2000 parents, 49% agreed, and a quarter strongly agreed, with the reintroduction of ‘the cane or slipper’. Fathers were particularly keen, with 58% of men, as against 40% of women, in favour of this disciplinary measure.
I have always believed it important to...
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