Inhalt: "This paper focuses on the relative underachievement of First Class degrees by women
in the U.K. as compared to their male counterparts. This 'problem' is particularly
prevalent in History, Sociology and English, despite the predominance of women studying
both English and Sociology. Various hypotheses attempt to account for this gender
differentiation in First Class academic achievement but, for the purposes of this
paper, the validity of one hypothesis - the 'inequality in assessment' explanation
- will be tested. The hypothesis suggests that undergraduate writing is 'gendered'
and that male academic work tends to conform to a writing style characterised as bold,
confident and risk-taking whereas the female undergraduate writing style is argued
to be cautious and conscientious (McCrum 1994 and 1996, Martin 1997 and Sutherland
1997). The research involves the quantitative analysis of HESA data and the qualitative
analysis of eleven, in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with faculty employed
at Sussex University. My analysis of qualitative data indicates that academics perceive
that undergraduate writing is 'gendered' to a certain extent and that in 'argument-based'
subjects, for example, Sociology, History and English, it is the typically male style
of writing that is rewarded. It is evident also, that in 'fact-based' subjects, for
instance, Law and Economies, academics perceive that neither style of writing offers
an intrinsic advantage, hence what constitutes a First in the 'fact-based' disciplines
differs greatly from the argument-based ones. Analysis of HESA data similarly demonstrates
that for these disciplines there is no gender differentiation in the awarding of First
Classifications." (author's abstract)|