Every year reports emerge about the difference in results between male and female Finalists. However, a survey has uncovered worrying ambivalence among students at Oxford towards the notorious ‘Finals Gap’.

Research has revealed that a significant gender gap exists in Finals results in six out of the twelve main subjects at Oxford. These subjects are English, History, Classics, Philosophy, Maths and Physics. Women have not once outperformed men in English, History or PPE between 1996 and 2008.

There are only three British universities with a larger and more persistent gender gap: Bristol, Imperial and Warwick.

Yet in a survey completed by over 250 students, only 50% considered that the gender gap was a problem that should be addressed by the examining board. Many students seemed to be completely unaware that there even was a gender gap in Finals results.

The University pledged to initiate research into the issue over twenty years ago and take action as appropriate, but the reasons behind the gender gap have proved difficult to ascertain.

Oxford’s future Pro-Vice Chancellor for Equality, Dr Sally Mapstone, is currently chairing an investigation into the gender gap in English Finals results, one of the several subjects to have been examined.

When asked to comment on project’s progress, Dr Mapstone said that she could not comment on reasons for the Finals Gap, as her research was still in progress.
Psychologist Dr Jane Mellanby has been carrying out extensive research on the gender gap for over a decade. She was commissioned by the English faculty in 2004 to conduct a comprehensive annual analysis of examiner attitudes and marking profiles.

She stressed that the gender gap is specific to certain subjects and is “not a general phenomenon”. In 1997 she conducted intelligence tests on more than 230 students about to sit their Finals, and demonstrated that there was no intrinsic difference between the sexes’ abilities.

Disparities in Finals results between the sexes have greatly decreased over the last twenty years in some subject areas such as the Biological Sciences, Engineering, Geography, Law and Modern Languages.

“There wouldn’t be such a great change [in results] if the cause was genetic”, said Dr Ann Dowker, a fellow researcher in the Psychology Department.

Cultivating the idea that the problem was genetic might in fact adversely affect women’s performance in exams, and unconsciously prejudice the examiners. Only 26% of students taking part in the survey dismissed the possibility that there might be examiner bias.

According to Mellanby, the most likely explanation for the gender gap is “Stereotype Threat”, a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that an individual will be evaluated on that stereotype.

For instance, if a group of women are told that men have greater mathematical abilities, men are likely to outperform those women in subsequent tests. Women’s performance also has been shown to decline, according to research at Brown University in 2000, as the proportion of men in the exam room increases. Men’s maths performance, on the other hand, remained stable in every combination of proportions of men to women.

61.1% of students taking the survey believed that men do better in Finals because they are better at risk-taking. Dr Diane Purkiss, English tutor at Keble College, said, “Nobody on the working party likes to admit it, but girls who like to do confident and slightly careless arguments are truly unusual. But that is what the 50-minute essay is all about. It’s all about being bolshie. Fight ‘em. Bite ‘em.”

Many other theories have been disproved by research, among them that men are more intelligent because they have bigger brains, and that pre-menstrual syndrome might cause a woman to drop one point on the Norrington score.

When asked to comment in the survey, students often attributed the gender gap to men’s greater “variability”, pointing out correctly that men are more likely to get Firsts, but that they are also more likely to get 2.2s and Thirds.

However, in the period 2005 to 2008, only 9.4% of Finals results were 2.2s or Thirds, with a difference of 2.75% between men and women, compared with the 30% of men and 22.5% of women to achieve Firsts. The proportion of Thirds (2.2% in 2005-2008) and 2.2s handed out is too small to draw a reliable conclusion.

Several students suggested that women’s tendency to be more anxious might be detrimental to their results, but Dr Mellanby’s research shows that the more anxious women are, the more likely they are to achieve better grades. With men, there is absolutely no correlation between anxiety and exam performance.

Men are far more accurate in the estimation of their own abilities. Of the men who expected to get a First at the end of their course, 70% were proved correct. Only 55% of the women were similarly successful.

Dr Mellanby also emphasized how important it is that students are properly instructed how to cope with revision strategies and “organize their work”.

Oxford University Labour Club has unveiled a grand plan to “Reunite the Liberal Left” by persuading disaffected Lib-Dem voters to switch sides.

Starting last weekend, 370 hand-addressed letters were sent to a list of students culled from a Lib-Dem facebook group.

The letter says, “The decision to ally with the Conservatives…has elevated the forces of conservatism and destroyed the Liberal Democrats’ credibility. A party that supports a government with more homophobes in the Cabinet than women or ethnic minorities can longer claim the mantle of ‘progressive’.

“A party that supports a cap on immigration has forfeited its claim to be a compassionate party. And a party that will not oppose tax breaks for the married is not fit to call itself liberal”.

Students are warned, “The Liberal Democrats will be finished as a credible progressive force for generations. The proud tradition of the liberal left should not be destroyed along with its party.”

The letter urges that “the proud tradition of the liberal left should not be destroyed along with its party.” It concludes with an invitation for students to become members of OULC at a half-price rate.

The letter is signed by Alistair Strathern and Stephen Bush, the OULC Chair and Chair-Elect, respectively. Bush is understood to have proposed the letter within OULC as a move to try and reunite the progressive parties in Oxford.

Bush explained his policy to Cherwell. “I’ve always believed that the loss of the SDP in the 80s when the Labour party split was a traged…I would have preferred a Lib-Lab coalition leading to the reconciliation of those two traditions…”

Bush said this campaign was “an opportunity for us to hold our hand out and say, ‘there are things we can learn from you, there are things you can learn from us, let’s reunite the left again’.”

The price of OULC membership has been slashed to ten pounds for the duration of next Michaelmas term. However, membership of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats (OULD) costs just £3, compared to OULC’s usual £20 life membership fee.

Andrew Lomas, a pharmacology DPhil student and Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Wycombe, supported OULC’s initiative. “I think it’s a great thing to do” he said. “It’s only fair to point out that the Lib-Dems have sold out the voters and give people on the progressive left a place to actually voice their opinions…£10 is a bargain when you’re talking about having a say in the future of the democratic Left.”

Leading Lib Dems were outraged at Labour’s tactics. OULD Campaigns Officer Emily Baxter said in a written statement:”OULC’s letter exhibits classic New Labour spin tactics. As they themselves acknowledge, numerous difficulties would have faced a Lib-Lab alliance. A ‘Rainbow Coalition’ was simply not viable… I hope that students will recognise this and not buy into OULC’s cheap and cynical offer. OULD campaigned tirelessly against Labour at the General Election, with the support of many students, because we recognised Labour’s many failings over the last 13 years. That has not changed. Labour cannot now claim to be ‘the good guys’ simply by virtue of having gone into opposition.”

This sentiment was echoed more earthily by Lib-Dem grassroots activist Robin McGhee of St Anne’s College.
“The letter is sermonising in a rather twee and hypocritical way. The OULC, it would appear, are simply unable to comprehend the fact that they are not the only people with a moral backbone.

“Even OCA have one, albeit rather crippled by port-induced rheumatism. Labour are also unable to understand the difference between forming a tactical alliance with the Tories with the blessing of the party membership, as we have, and converting into the Tories against the wishes of their party, as New Labour did.”

A further spate of violent incidents in Cowley this week highlight the escalating level of aggression in Oxford that are affecting both town and gown alike.

On Saturday, a local man was knifed in the buttock as he tried to prevent thugs from getting into his restaurant. The chain of events that led to the stabbing begun at Temple Lounge on Cowley Road, where customers had been shocked to hear a diner abusively demand that the manager take his order. Staff escorted the man and his associates from the premises around 10.30pm.

Shortly afterwards the men attempted to re-enter the restaurant but were blocked by the manager and assistant manager. In the fracas that followed, the manager was allegedly slapped by the ringleader and the front door was smashed in. One of the men produced a lock knife and stabbed the assistant manager in the buttock.

The attackers then fled the scene. They are believed to be aged in their mid-thirties.

The knife victim, 40, wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals but spoke exclusively to Cherwell. “My bum feels very sore…I’ve got four stitches.”

The victim continued, “I haven’t seen [the wound] yet but it’s about two inches deep. I’m lucky to be alive because if it was two inches up or two inches down I would have bled to death before I got to hospital.”
The manager is thought to have had previous trouble with the attackers. Police have not arrested anyone in connection with the assault.

An anonymous man familiar with the restaurant said “[The attackers] were plastic gangsters down from London. You get a lot of that around the Cowley Road now.”

Exeter College student Alex Ding lives around the corner from the crime scene. “I don’t feel safe at all” he said. “I’m going to be much more careful walking around Cowley Road now. It’s really not very safe.”

In a separate incident, a nineteen year old man was arrested in the early hours of last Sunday morning outside Clem’s nightclub on the Cowley Road roundabout for beating an Oxford University student with his belt, causing severe head injuries.

Witnesses at the scene reported that the fight broke out after the student threw a bottle that hit the windscreen of a passing car. The furious driver jumped out the car, took off his belt, and used it to whip the student and his friend. Bouncers at the nightclub called the police to the scene who intervened and arrested the driver.

Thames Valley Police told Cherwell, “The incident took place at 1:26 AM on Sunday morning outside Clementine’s nightclub. A male was hit in the back of the head with a belt several times, causing it to bleed. We were called to the incident and the grieved party pointed out the offender who we promptly arrested for assault.” The driver is now on police bail until 14 June.

Bouncers had ejected the student from Clems after he had been caught urinating on the downstairs bar.

Mr Garcia said, “the student wasn’t happy with being kicked out, he was very drunk. He stood across the road from the bouncers and attempted to throw a bottle at them but instead it hit a passing car. The bottle hit the windscreen and the man pulled over. Of course, he wasn’t happy, next thing we knew a fight broke out”.

Bouncers at the nightclub decided not to get involved until the police arrived. One witness stated that she had implored the bouncers to intervene but they refused. This has caused concerns among partying students about street safety late at night.

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson said, “Bouncers don’t have power of arrest. They have to be very careful about intervening.”

The assaults this week are the latest in a series of violent crimes in Oxford. The last fortnight alone has seen a body wash up in the Isis, a sexual assault and a fatal stabbing. In a further attack last week, a Christ Church student was left unconscious on St. Aldate’s whilst walking home from The Bridge nightclub.

Christ Church Junior Censor Ian Watson claimed that “Oxford is still not Detroit”. Asked to comment on the latest Cowley Road attack, Dr Watson conceded that “It does seem to be getting more dangerous.”

A spokesperson from the University maintained, “Violent attacks against Oxford University students remain a very rare occurrence”

Balliol students have raised concern following their JCR meeting this week, where a vote was passed in favour of funding of the Reach Oxford Scholarship.

Members of the JCR will be responsible for financing approximately half of the maintenance grant for recipients of the scholarship through an optional charge on their battels.

This leaves open the possibility that an applicant could be accepted both by the University and by the college, but then be unable to take advantage of the offer because JCR members refuse to pay the optional addition on their battels, set to fund the scholar’s living costs.

Some students left the meeting feeling uncomfortable with this arrangement. Balliol undergraduate Jim Ormiston said, “It’s ridiculous that the future of this applicant is consigned to 40 undergraduates sitting around the JCR, beer in hand!”

Balliol students Max Deacon and Seb Fassam felt that although the motion passed, “many students felt held to ransom by the university, and that we would be ruining someone’s life if it failed to pass”.

Deacon asked, “What if the motion hadn’t passed? Would [the Reach Oxofrd scholar’s] dreams have been smashed?
“The general feeling seems to be that we were left little choice but to pass the money. What would happen if, in future, lots of people decline to pay or future students choose to vote the motion down?” 

Further concerns were raised over the anonymity of the scholar. Deacon and Fassam said, “It will be quite apparent who the Reach Oxford scholar is and they will know that other students are directly paying for the maintenance grant. They will be able to read the minutes from the GM when they arrive!

“It would only take one drunk moron in freshers’ week to make this person feel miserable. Somewhere along the line there has been an obcene violation of privacy. Why should anybody know the financial staus of any other student, especially one we are funding ourselves?

One student at the meeting told Cherwell, “everybody in the JCR Committee and later the GM was allowed to find out who this person was, including their nationality. Armed with just this piece of information it would not be particularly difficult to discern which of the new freshers we’ll be funding.”

Deacon and Fassam emphasized that “nobody at the GM had a problem funding this scheme – it’s a fantastic idea that will mean some really great people come to Oxford. However, we really felt the University should have confirmed that the JCR was willing to pay before accepting this person. Not to have done so was irresponsible and just downright rude.”

The Reach Oxford Scholarship is offered by a number of colleges to students from developing countries.The scholarship pays for university and college fees, as well as flights to and from the United Kingdom at the beginning and end of the course.

The University said, “in funding these scholarships, the University remits most of its fee, the JCR of the college provides at least half of the student’s living costs, and the college provides the rest of the funds. Understandably then, all these parties – University, college and JCR – need to agree to this to be able to provide a scholarship at the college in question.”

The University regulations for the scholarship indicate that it will only fund the scheme if JCR members agree to the funding.

However, by the end of the scholar’s degree, most of the students who voted on the JCR motion will no longer be at Balliol, and their successors may choose to vote differently on funding.

The number of applicants for postgraduate degrees at Oxford overtook the number of applications for undergraduate degrees for the first time ever last year, according to newly-released figures by a government review into postgraduate education in the UK.

The ratio of graduate applications to filled places for entry in 2009/10 is four to one, while at undergraduate level it is five to one. Applications for postgraduate study at Oxford has risen by 60% over the past four years. Over the same period, the number of places for postgraduate study has increased by 34%.

The University has already received graduate 18,800 applications for the next academic year, and is expecting to receive more in the coming months. The total undergraduate applications this year came to 17,144.

This reflects a general increase in demand for postgraduate study at British universities.  It has been suggested that the recession is the primary cause of this, as graduates are unable to find jobs and instead choose to boost their qualifications.

Ewan McKendrick, Oxford’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, said to the Times, “We have more or less hit the ceiling, so if we want to go further to expand graduate numbers we have difficult decisions to make.
“Oxford is now the UK’s largest recipient of research funding and the quality and impact of its research is world-renowned.

“Its continued growth and development as a centre of excellence could not have been possible without an increasing number of graduates working on research projects and supporting Oxford’s world-leading research.”
There is concern that this surge in applications could undermine efforts to widen access, as student loans are only available to under-graduates. Post-graduate grants are competitive, and many post-graduates have to secure their own funding either from their family or elsewhere.

Sarah Hutchinson, OUSU VP for graduates, is enthusiastic about the latest figures, “It is very exciting that so many students are interested in taking up postgraduate study at Oxford, although the surge in applications in the last two years may reflect difficulties graduates have experienced in finding employment due to the recession.”

Hutchinson also expressed concern that the high cost of post-graduate study would deter potential applicants.  
She said, “I am very concerned that the cost of postgraduate study will put people off applying, but I would recommend anyone worried about this to get in touch with the University’s Graduate Fees and Funding office, who can advise them of the support available.

“The need to increase access to postgraduate study was a key message in the OUSU submission to the Smith review on postgraduate education, and is something we are currently working on with colleges, the university and the NUS.  It is essential that the Graduate Fund remains a top priority for the University if we want to continue to attract the best applicants”.

The cost of graduate study at Oxford varies depending on course. University fees for home students are generally around £3,500, though some can be £25-30,000 per year. Overseas students generally pay between £12,200 and £33,000, and students also pay college fees, typically between £1,900 and £2,300.

Jane Sherwood, Director of Graduate Admissions and Funding, said, “The upward trend in applications predates the global financial downturn and reflects the appeal of studying at a world-renowned university, the quality of teaching and research supervision and the high quality of the research being undertaken here by world-leading academics”

There are now 8,701 postgraduates at Oxford, compared with 11,766 undergraduates. Oxford currently offers 328 different graduate degree programmes.

A fire alert took place at the Eagle and Child pub on St Giles Street on Monday. The pub was forced to close and evacuate its visitors. Two fire engines were sent to the location, and the immediate area surrounding the pub was cordoned off.

A spokesman from the Eagle and Child said, “A minor electrical fault was established yesterday afternoon which led to a small amount of smoke being discovered in the pub around 3.30pm. Staff discovered the fault before it had activated the smoke alarms and as a precaution contacted the fire brigade who came and took control of the situation.

“A small number of customers and staff were evacuated safely from the premises as a precaution, with staff then able to re-enter the building at approximately 5pm.”

Watch manager John Moulder, of the Oxford Fire Brigade, said, “The staff did the right thing and evacuated everyone on the spot.”

The historic pub is famous for its associations with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.