Gender and School Performance

Leigh Sabio posted the following in the recent thread about the new book Man Down:

Emphasis mine. I think this topic is worth discussing. What is behind the deterioration of the average boy's school performance?

Some people blame the "feminization" of the public school system, by which they mean that most elementary school teachers are women and the "sit still and listen" teaching style favors girls. This rings false to me, because grade school teachers have been predominantly female and classroom operation has required that children "sit still and listen" for at least 100 years. It's only within the last 20 years or so that boys have been lagging behind girls in school performance. (Also, I don't think boys are "inherently" more rambunctious than girls, but that's a discussion for another thread. Probably several other threads.)

One possible culprit might be the way masculinity is constructed in our culture as an absence of femininity, a distancing of oneself from all things seen as "typical" of girls. Under this model, if girls begin to excel in school, boys have no choice but to disdain and avoid such achievements, or they are guilty of being "girly," which is apparently the greatest sin a boy can commit.

I could also be cynical and nasty and suggest that maybe girls really are smarter than boys, and now that boys are no longer being artificially favored, their natural inferiority is revealed. But I don't really think that, and I don't think anyone else here does either.

The second most important question, after "What is causing this?" is of course "What should we do about it?" In a sense, of course, the answer to the first question will provide the answer to the second—i.e., once we figure out what's causing it, the solution is to stop doing that thing (although of course saying it and accomplishing it are two different things). But what if we find out that girls' performance and boys' performance are a zero-sum game, and we must favor one or the other? (I very much doubt that they are, but I admit that it's possible, especially given my above point about how we construct masculinity.) Are we willing to say that either sex is more important than the other as far as education goes?

Ready...set..discuss!

The question then becomes, has boys' performance gotten worse or girls' performance just gotten better?

edited 8th Mar '11 10:02:28 AM by CBanana

and that's how Equestria was made!

For a bunch of reasons, but predominantly it is a combination of two things. First at the youngest of ages there is a distinct difference in the order that certain brain structures develop. A lot of the stereotype about girls are bad at math comes from a lower level of development in math related area's in the brain at the age when math is being taught. This creates a lower initial level of proficiency which in turn causes a streaming discrepancy which means that by the time the girls are graduating from high school they really are not as good at math. The current problem with boys comes from the fact that while men gain the advantage in terms of when math is taught the linguistics sections are taught at a more age appropriate time for girls. Combined with an already enlarge language center it means that young girls get a quicker induction into good literacy. And unlike math which is not foundational until much later on in much higher fields language is the fundamental basis for all education. Without proper language and literacy it creates a streaming discrepancy along the whole of education.

So in a way, it is a feminization issue. But in order of subjects rather than teaching style. Though the current neglect of athletics as a non core subject has a lot to do with general educational failings it does impact young boys more as they are.... well more hyper.

Finally there is an issue that on average men will do more poorly in any memory task than women. Memorization is something that women generally have an inherent advantage in. A lot of current education stresses rote memorization over more creative/practical tasks which men tend to do better comparatively at. And of course. There is the fact that Male intellect has a much higher sigma. More morons and more geniuses. Unfortunately a higher sigma means that there is a higher number of failures and since there is no "super success" category there is no canceling effect.

EDIT: Oh and how do we stop it? Three things

1. Gender Segregation until age 12 or so at which point brain structures have cemented in configuration and the sexes can meet each other on more or less equal ground. After 12 socialization with the opposite sex and socialization in general is as important as anything else that school teaches you...

2. Removal of standardized testing period. These test at best teach you to take tests and at worst fail to do that. It teaching in general and young boys in particular as they have poorer reading comprehension and memory. Something that hopefully point 1 can address but if it can't then at least we can force knowledge based testing. Fill in the blanks at least. Short answer questions better. Long answer the best. Single greatest final I ever saw was 1 question for an entire human physiology class.

3. Return athletics, music, shop, art and creative writing to core curriculum. Humans learn by doing not by being yelled at. A shop class with a physics teacher will teach you more about electrical physics than any AP Physics course. Furthermore the brain is a cardiovascular organ. Proper cardio makes you smarter. Despite what we have been focusing on math, humanities and the sciences are not more important that music and art and gym. Part of the importance to boys in particular is that there is a much stronger set of social constraints on what forms of expression men can engage in. Thus it is important to get little boys inculcated early on the arts.

edited 8th Mar '11 9:49:57 AM by Shrimpus

I was thinking it might be due to:

• A lack of discipline in modern schools hurts boys' education. Pop culture, at least in the U.S. celebrates disrespect and anti - intellectualism at the expense of traditional heroes, warrior poets, political and economic leaders, blue collar workers of legendary skill, etc. Today (as a song I heard said) we all want to be rock stars.
• I've heard a complaint against feminism that there isn't a clear role for men in a society where women are equal. While I'm not sure feminism is to blame, girls are encouraged to envision their personal future more than boys. It used to be that boys were encouraged to do everything they could (including education) to become a breadwinner for a family. Now that role is often questioned.

But I like Shrimpus' hypothesis.

edited 8th Mar '11 9:52:28 AM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

Admittedly, I've been out of public school for over a dozen years now, but up until high school, while there might have been a higher average among the girls  ^*

^{I honestly don't know/remember back that far}

, the highest grade was always a boy. In high school, half of the top ten percent were boys, though the Valedictorian for my high school was a girl.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Agreed, in part, with Shrimpus. We need to stop discouraging competition in schools. Schools are starting to favor the feminine gender stereotype (quiet and meek), because active kids are seen as "boyish" and "troublemakers".

I mean, primary schools are banning schoolyard games for god's sakes. Recess is going away, as are sports programs. I never could sit still in class without my mind being a million miles away, liked to run and jump and climb, and I was considered a "tomboy". The less physical activity I got, the worse my grades got. I was happiest when I was making things, or learning through means other than sitting for hours and doing worksheets.

I'd say that the "boyish" girls are getting the short end of the stick along with the boys.

edited 8th Mar '11 10:16:00 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

I think it's mostly girls closing the gap and the new pressure on them to actually do stuff besides becoming home makers leading to their being forced to actually use their inherently higher average intelligence.

Although from what's been said my brain appears to have developed like a girl's, at least in terms of developmental timing.

I think it's more an issue with overall education and the fact that so many boys are seeing sports as their career and sinking time into athletics above all other pursuits.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.

Boys who stick their time into sports over broader education is a problem in a very specific set of demographics. Namely the american black communuty and a few of the islands. In general that is more of a class an opportunity issue than it is a male female issue. The higher mean intelligence of women is also a probable cause, but the issue there is that the metrics used to measure this are not the mot accurate. Different area's of education ar impacted differently by different intelligence axises. For example, spatial awareness and geometric rotation is not a category of intellect that is particulaly useful before you start a career as a mechanical engineer but is something that men have a built in affinity for. Where is that measured in children? Geometry is calculation based now a days. The only place it finds exceptional use is in pre k fitting blocks in to pegs,

Edit: hungry joe, it is quite possible that you got dealt a female configuration brain.

edited 8th Mar '11 10:28:37 AM by Shrimpus

I'm not sure what you mean by this. We identify the "super success" kids in school in lots of ways—Honors and Advanced Placement programs, academic decathlons, various academic awards, the entire concept of the Valedictorian.

Or are you not referring to school?

So, females have been getting better grades than males for twenty years? If I remember correctly (and I probably don't, so if I'm wrong tell me and I'll correct or delete this) wasn't it in the last twenty years that the American School System started emphasizing test scores, especially over homework?

There is a tendency to "teach to the test", as in to specifically teach the information that will be on the final tests, as opposed to a broader, less focused/specialized teaching. Maybe females are better at learning specifics, which would help more on a test, and males are better at learning general information, which would help more on homework. If tests have been emphasized for about twenty years, and if females were generally better at the mental skill of memorizing specific information that helps on tests, than over the twenty years in which test-taking skills were emphasized, than females would get better grades.

edited 8th Mar '11 10:57:50 AM by AlirozTheConfused

Never be without a Hat! Hot means heat. I don't care if your usage dates to 1300, it's my word, not yours. My Pm box is open.

I think this is a big part of the problem. While public schools have outgrown the "shut up or I'll smack you" approach to discipline, quietness and a general proclivity to keep out of trouble, not question authority, and jump through countless institutional hoops is still rewarded in the form of higher grades (based on attentiveness and attendance, not just how well your work reflects your intellect). Anecdote: all the goofballs in my school system were boys. Boys getting on the teachers' nerves, getting sent to detention, being obviously, visibly bored and confrontational. It's possible that girls just managed to conceal their dissatisfaction better, but patience is disproportionately expected from them anyway, so...

: Well, I agree. At my school the girls was always the first to complain, because they was bored to death. They could complain because the internal group pressure was so high that they all knew exactly where they had each other for the most, and the end result was they if they agreed they would cause a uproar.

A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.

I don't think this is such a great idea. Young kids are already commonly pretty sexist and immature about the opposite sex without adults reinforcing such notions by segregating them.

Anecdotal, but it was only a minority of boys who were actually troublemakers from what I remember, and I always figured they were just arrogant dumbasses who couldn't be bothered to pay attention because they thought the work was beneath them.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:08:46 PM by BobbyG

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Seconding Bobby G's anecdote.

In elementary and junior high, it was usually boys who were troublemakers. And yeah, usually they were the arrogant ones who thought they were too good for schoolwork.

In high school, the biggest troublemakers were girls, specifically a group of three who thought they could sit around in class and talk about makeup, movies, and other girly stuff, while the teacher was handing out assignments or otherwise talking. I know it shocked the hell out of them when our chemistry teacher wrote them up two weeks into the school year, but then his was the only class where they couldn't get away with it - none of the female teachers would do anything other than  ^*

ask them to be quiet.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

The only time I can remember when the girls were the worst behaved students was sixth form, when the boys were all there to do the work. The girls would talk non-stop. Weirdly, it was only the girls from the local girl's grammar school who were like this.

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Generally, my academic classes were fairly equal for gender/scores. For me it was the classes that required attention, especially the arts, where most boys did badly and pissed everyone else off. You can get by with not paying much attention in Math or English because as long as you don't disrupt the class and do well on your homework/tests, you're good. You can't do that in art or drama because the entire point is to participate or work the whole period.

Art? Guys were goofing off and not doing anything, often pathetically impressed whenever people happened to be, well, ARTISTS that could get things done on time.

Drama? All the guys except for the... two to four established male actors were goofing off and not doing anything, often pathetically impressed by those same 2-4 actors who could act out a scene as opposed to reciting their lines while standing stock-still. Of course, most of the girls besides the 4-6 established female actors did just as poorly because they were always talking in class.

I think the underlying problem is work-ethic and not necessarily intelligence. Most people in our generation are bombarded with stories of instant fame/recognition/wealth, which is exacerbated by our use of the Internet. They don't want the education to be normal 9-to-5 workers because they think having talent is all they'll need to get discovered and have it made overnight.

Of course, if they'd paid attention in school, they'd know that talent is about 10%—the other 90% is, surprise surprise, work. My theater prof said that if he had to pick between a talented actor who won't show up consistently and an average actor who always shows up, he'd pick the average actor every time because he knows they're willing to work for things.

edited 8th Mar '11 12:58:08 PM by Sharysa

The idea of a lack of work ethic sounds like a better reason for lagging behind than intelligence.

Mainly because it's quite true of myself. -sigh-

Kara, when you have a mean scoring of say 75 and in one population the sigma is say 10 and in the other it is the same 75 with a sigma of 20 then if the max score is one hundred and the min is zero then you are going to have a skew. Furthermore if the failing score is 65 then more of the sigma 20 population is going to be "failing". The sigma 20 population is going to have a substantial fraction scoring at or near max and the extra points won't be couned since you can't do better than perfect. And whats more while there is a passing and failing category there is no super successful category that would act as a way to balance the pass fail numbers that alot of academic institutions use as a metric.

Now this is a simplification certainly, but it demonstrates some of the weaknesses of comparing populations that are distributed unequally.

Bobby, Sexism is not a primary concern for primary schoolers. Their idea of interaction with the opposite sex is pushing them. It is down right silly to think that you are helping kids by shooting their developement in the foot in the name of socialization that can be easily gotten elsewhere. If you are really all that concerened that without a coed environment we are raising somehow deficient children then you can put the kids in the same school but given them different classes.

Again and again it has been shown that not only do kids of different sexes hit defelopemenral milestonees at diffent times but that they stereotype themselves along gender lines in the presence of the opposite sex. If you force them into certain pathways before they have a chance to define themselves you risk gimping them.

A combination of two things:

1. For most of history, most girls have not had much of a need for high amounts of education. Sure the occasional girl who wanted to work after she got out of school might need some knowledge, but what's the point of learning algebra if you're going to be a housewife?

Now that this pressure is gone, women actually have a reason to need education, which means they now actually see the point to learning stuff.

That was enough to explain why women are equal to men, but since they actually outperform men slightly we need to add:

2. For a very long time, the stereotype of men was not only that they were stronger but that they were also more intelligent, and women just got the short end of the stereotype stick.

Now we've got rid of that silliness, but we're not far enough to have totally gotten rid of it; instead what we've got now is that men are either "nerds" who are good at "logical" things like math and physics or else just stupid, and all girls are good at "emotional" things like English or psychology or at most biology.

For the "nerds", this isn't terrible, as they're still supposed to be good at around 50% of subjects. (As a nerd who's better at English than math I can say even this part of the steryotype is a bunch of hooey.) But most men aren't nerds, and the stereotype allows men who are just stupid. So a lot of men think it's true that they're stupid and don't bother trying, where girls who don't have that stereotype regard themselves of at least average intelligence no matter how bad they do at school.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

I know in my case in high school it's because the girls started developing some nice tits and asses. Hard to focus on algebra when there is some nice D's sitting next to you.

Wait, biology is "emotional". Flat "What". Black Humor, I'm sorry but none of that post makes the slightest bit of sense beyond the opening postualte of evened educational opportunities.

It's not one of the harder sciences, is the point.

If you have to pick between physics, chemistry and biology, biology is the "girl" science.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

@Hungry Joe: Girls don't actually have inherently higher average intelligence, you know. The gender role does, but there's nothing biological which makes them smarter. As far as we know, at least. It's possible that's not true, but the difference is so much smaller than the actual academic difference. This is pretty clearly the result of social conditioning and gender roles.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

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