“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Brand new report “Manopolies” out now
Following the 2023 publication of our ground-breaking research quantifying the scale of sexism in English Literature GCSEs, “Pride and who? Jane where?”, ESIS is now releasing a follow up report exposing the reasons behind this, and why it won’t change without Government intervention.
Male writers continue to dominate the GCSE English Literature set text lists with very little changing. For 2024 GCSEs, only 5% of pupils in England and Wales studied a whole text – a novel or play – by a female author (2% in 2022).
Yet again, teachers chose the same few male authored texts with male protagonists: 93% study A Christmas Carol or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and 76% study An Inspector Calls.
It is not surprising. There is no incentive for teachers to change texts – An Inspector calls has been on all four examination Boards’ set text lists variously between 26 and 39 years, since the inception of GCSEs in 1986.
Examination boards have told ESIS they will not remove dominant texts such as An Inspector Calls, with one exam board admitting it would create a commercial risk if they were the only board to do so.
The Department for Education (DfE) and Ofqual do not require examination boards to change texts after a set number of years. The DfE now needs to mandate change to break the English Literature ‘Manopoly’.
Our new research report – Manopolies: How the education system embeds sexism in GCSE English Literature – analyses the system that determines the texts schools choose to teach at GCSE English Literature in England and Wales. It draws on data gathered from examination boards, teachers and other educational professionals to propose the modifications required to change the white, male-dominated curriculum. Read our detailed findings in the full report.
Download the Research
2025 Report
Manopolies
2023 Report
Pride and Who?
