Which Students In The UK Are Most Likely To Study Foreign Languages In Secondary Schools?

In the UK, girls from middle-class family backgrounds are far more likely to study a foreign language in secondary school than boys of working class origins, according to a survey conducted in 2005 and a subsequent BBC report. According to most surveys, over 60% of students who successfully completed a foreign language course were enrolled in private, rather than public schools. Moreover, the majority of these students were female. David Bell, the UK's Chief Inspector of Schools, expressed much concern over this situation on a number of occasions and noted both the class-based and gender-based divide in terms of the students who choose to study a foreign language.

According to some specialists, having all-boys and all-girls classrooms might actually help increase the number of male students who choose to study a foreign language. At any rate, it would appear that something must be done to rectify this situation, partly because university modern languages departments are increasingly realizing that their pool of applicants is decreasing each year.