What kinds of strategies do girls and boys make use of when they are working with work plans, and in what way do they organise the work plan period? During the past decade, the Norwegian educational policy has been concerned with the fact that boys are underperforming when compared with girls, and that they are continuing to lag behind especially in reading achievement. Even if this academic gender gap is an international phenomenon (Ofsted, 2003), one common point of view is that the Norwegian compulsory school has failed the boys’ educational needs by not being able to integrate them when organising the classrooms and that they have created learning environments that discriminates against boys. This has led to a heated discussion about the educational system and the use of different teaching methods. “The Primary and Lower Secondary Education Act of 1998” demands that all Norwegian children receive an adapted education. In order to promote differential learning and to support student-centered methods, work plans have become a frequent set up in Norwegian classrooms (Kjærnsli & Lie, 2003; Lie, Kjærnsli, Roe, & Turmo, 2001; Mejding & Roe, 2006). A work plan is a document of academic work that describes what the pupils are supposed to do in different subjects over a specific period of time (Klette, 2007). Nordahl and Sunnevåg (2008) claim that the extensive use of different individualized teaching methods has lead to a wider academic gender gap in the favour of girls. The substantial use of work plans which gives students more responsibility for their own learning and at the same time demands a great deal of self-discipline, have contributed to how boys lag behind their female peers. The use of work plans in Norwegian schools addresses an important dilemma. While boys respond well to lessons where the teachers make use of clear learning objectives, short-term tasks, and tightly timed activities with clear targets (Ofsted, 2003), girls respond well to lessons where they can collaborate, discuss, and promote their own learning (Younger & Warrington, 2002). The work plan requires that the students are able to plan and self-regulate strategies which seem to come more naturally for girls. Quite a few boys often demand immediate feedback on tasks and assignments (Gipps, 1996; Younger, Warrington, & Williams, 1999), which is quite difficult to meet in a learning environment based on the use of work plans. Sweden and Norway are the two main countries which heavily use work plans (called own work in Sweden) in the education of the pupils. At the same time PISA (2006) and TIMSS (2007) provides data showing that these two countries have had the greatest fall in students’ performance on international academic comparative tests (Grønmo & Onstad, 2009; Kjærnsli, Lie, Olsen, & Roe, 2007). The extensive use of work plans in Norwegian classrooms might be one out of several factors that contribute to this situation. However, the evidence of what kind of impact the use of work plans has on the learning environment is limited.

My analysis draws on already collected data material from the PISA+-project (PISA+,2009), and is based on videotaped interviews with 53 girls and 46 boys from five 9th grade math and science classrooms in Norway. The interviews were first transcribed according to thematic organized questions. After transcribing the interviews every student was then categorised as either a “high achiever” or a “low achiever”. The basis for these two attainment categories is the student‘s self-report of their own school grades. After transcribing the interviews, the answers given by the students were organized and grouped according to both gender and school. This made it possible to link school, gender, and students’ attainment levels. All the students have been given a personal code that makes it possible to trace each statement to the actual person. The interviews were then qualitatively analysed to identify typical strategies used by the students when working with work plans.

Girls and boys strategies in relation to work plans are: Girls They cooperate during study lessons and normal lessons. They work quite a lot during study lessons. They work with mathematics when study teacher is present. They discuss solutions and procedures. They distribute the tasks evenly throughout the period. They work with the plan at home in order to do the tasks neatly. They cooperate and discuss different solutions and methods. They ask each other for help if they do not understand the tasks. They work with the tasks alone at first, and then they collaborate in order to discuss solutions. Boys They rarely discuss and cooperate. They work individually with the work plan. They work a lot at home. They work with mathematics even if the subject teacher is not present. They rarely discuss solutions and procedures. They postpone the work until the last couple of days. They make use of little discussion and cooperation in accordance with both work plans and tasks. They ask each other for the correct answers. They cooperate with tasks especially given for collaboration.