This paper considers contemporary "moral panics" around the underachievement of boys in school examinations in the UK and America. In the UK, in particular, the underachievement of boys is central to current "crisis accounts" about falling standards and failing pupils. "Underachievement" is a familiar word to those…

In "British Journal of Sociology of Education" Volume 29 number 3, 2008, Connolly presented what he termed a "critical review" of some of our previous work on the relative attainment of male and female students in UK schools. He proposed three general areas for criticism--our use of attainment gaps, our consideration of…

"Underachievement" has been one of the dominant discourses in education in recent times, but it is unclear what is meant by the term "underachievement", and there is no widely accepted way of defining or measuring it. This paper describes the final stage of a large study which used contextualised models to identify students who…

'Underachievement' is now a widely used term in education policy and practice. It is used routinely to refer to nations, home nations and regions, to types and sectors of schooling, to physiological, ethnic and social groups, and to individuals. It has been used to mean simply low achievement, also lower achievement relative to another of these…

This paper examines underachievement, a widely used term in education policy and practice often used to refer to nations, home nations, and regions; types and sectors of schooling; physiological, ethnic, and social groups; and individuals. It has been used to mean simply low achievement, also lower achievement relative to another of these groups,…