School strategies to boost boys’ attainment and close the gender divide with girls are “divisive and counterproductive”, according to a report to be published this week by the Government’s equalities watchdog.

The underachievement of boys relative to girls at school has become a recurring theme of educational debate and significant resources are invested in raising boys’ achievement.

Although there has been a slight narrowing of the gender gap in this year’s exam results, girls still outperform boys across the board. In primary tests, girls beat boys by ten percentage points in English last year. At A level, 25.1 per cent of girls achieved an A grade compared with 22.8 per cent of boys.

But in a highly provocative assertion, the Equal Opportunities Commission, suggests that “playing up the difference will exacerbate such difference”. While it acknowledges that there is a gender gap in literacy, with boys underperforming in relation to girls, the 80-page document adds: “In other areas, the gap is not significant and certainly the focus on boys’ underachievement detracts from the consideration needed to be given to the larger gaps between groups defined by social class and race.”

It concludes: “The strategies recommended have been divisive and often counter-productive in terms of their emphasis on gender differences and give the impression that all that was needed was to treat the two sexes as separate, homogenous groups.”

The report, by academics at Roehampton University, blames gender stereotyping by parents and teachers for exaggerating the gender gap. Entrenched attitudes based on ill-founded assumptions about gender roles mean that perceived differences between supposedly masculine subjects (such as physics) and so-called feminine ones (such as literacy) will increase over time, it cautions. It adds that there is no hard evidence that single-sex teaching improves boys’ results. Instead, the report suggests that schools should challenge stereotypes and encourage boys and girls to diversify their skills and interests.

The report notes that social class and race have a far more significant effect on school results than gender; girls from disadvantaged backgrounds trail far behind middle-class boys from the same ethnic group. There is also a wide variation in performance across black and ethnic minority groups, with a gap of 16 percentage points between the highest and lowest achieving ethnic groups in their English results.

Jenny Watson, who chairs EOC, said that the solution to raising school standards across the board was to adopt a holistic approach that took account of gender, class and race differences together, not in isolation.

But John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was right for schools to invest resources in raising the attainment of boys, just as they had done 20 years ago to raise girls’ achievement: “While it’s right to focus on all other underachieving areas, such as class and race, the focus on boys should not be eased, especially at a time when the gender gap is starting to narrow at GCSE and A level.”

Nick Gibb, the Tory schools spokesman, blamed 40 years of “progressive” teaching methods for the underachievement of boys, disadvantaged children and certain ethnic groups.

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