The subjects that boys and girls most enjoy are still defined by a stark gender gap, a new poll shows.
A survey by YouGov asked more than 4,000 children aged 6 to 15 how much they enjoyed a list of subjects.
The biggest difference of opinion between the sexes was in art: 62 per cent of girls studying the subject said they enjoyed it, compared with only 34 per cent of boys - a difference of 28 percentage points.
Girls were also much more likely than boys to say they enjoyed English (42 per cent compared with 25 per cent of boys), music (48 per cent against 34 per cent) and languages (28 per cent against 18 per cent).
Subject preferences ‘down to gender stereotyping’
By contrast, boys were much more likely to say they enjoyed computing (64 per cent compared with 46 per cent of girls), maths (42 per cent against 32 per cent), science (48 per cent against 39 per cent) and physical education (51 per cent against 42 per cent).
Boys and girls were equally likely to say they liked geography (23 per cent and 22 per cent respectively), and the survey showed only relatively small differences in pupils’ enjoyment of history, citizenship, religious education and design and technology.
The YouGov poll is only the latest survey to show that gender divisions remain in the classroom, with boys appearing to prefer maths and sciences and girls favouring arts and humanities subjects. Some commentators suggest the difference is the result of gender stereotyping.
These preferences feed through into equally stark gender differences in public exam entries. For example, 66.8 per cent of UK entries for art and design GCSEs in 2018 were from girls, whereas in computing 79.8 per cent of UK entries were from boys.
