"Viele Hauptschüler sind krank"

[FR-Online, 01. Juni 2010]

Professor Richter, dass Hauptschülerinnen am unteren Ende der sozialen Skala stehen, überrascht nicht. Aber dass sie auch noch kränker sind als etwa Gymnasiasten, gibt einem zu denken.

Hauptschüler gehören sehr häufig auch zu den sozial benachteiligten Bevölkerungsgruppen. Jetzt zeigt sich, dass sich zu dieser Last noch eine gesundheitliche Benachteiligung gesellt. Es werden weitere folgen. Überraschend ist das nicht. Hauptschülerinnen sterben ja auch vier Jahre früher als Abiturientinnen, wie wir aus einer Studie des Robert-Koch-Instituts (RKI) wissen. Und unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass elf- bis 15-jährige Hauptschüler ein etwa doppelt so hohes Risiko haben, gesundheitlich belastet zu sein als Gymnasiasten. Das ist dramatisch.

Sind Ihre Ergebnisse denn belastbar? Schließlich stützen Sie sich lediglich auf die Einschätzung der Schüler selbst.

Natürlich gibt es bei Selbstauskünften immer das Risiko Antworten zu bekommen, die als "sozial erwünscht" eingeschätzt werden. Aber da wir den Jugendlichen Anonymität garantiert haben und weder Eltern noch Lehrer die Fragebögen zu Gesicht bekamen, halte ich den Ehrlichkeitsgehalt für hoch. Sicher geben die Daten ein subjektives Bild, aber an genau diesem Bild waren wir auch interessiert. Statistische Routinedaten hätten uns diese Antworten, die Sichtweise der Heranwachsenden, nicht ermöglicht. Zudem zeigen unsere Ergebnisse einen hohen Deckungsgrad mit Daten von Studien, die neben subjektiven Daten auch "objektivere" Indikatoren verwendeten, etwa die Kiggs-Studie des RKI.

Mehrmals wöchentlich Schlafstörungen, Kopf- und Rückenschmerzen, Schwindel, Übelkeit - das geben 22,6 Prozent der Jugendlichen an und 36 Prozent der Hauptschülerinnen. Liegt das auch daran, dass Pubertierende nun mal besonders auf ihren Körper fixiert sind?

Die sozialen Unterschiede beeinflussen die Pubertät ja nicht. Aber natürlich spielt sie eine Rolle. Zum Beispiel, wenn sie besonders früh einsetzt, mit zehn oder elf, dann bedeutet das ein höheres Risiko für eine gesundheitliche Belastung. Die Jugendlichen müssen sich früher mit ihrem Körper befassen, interessieren sich für das andere Geschlecht, entdecken ihre Sexualität. Das ist ein Stressfaktor: Sie werden früh aus der Kindheit ins Haifischbecken des Erwachsenenlebens mit all seinen Anforderungen und Belastungen entlassen.

Wie erklären Sie sich, dass sich vor allem Mädchen oft krank oder schlecht fühlen?

Frauen insgesamt reagieren sensibler auf ihren Körper. Das mag mit ein Grund für den Unterschied sein. Aber: Mädchen verarbeiten Stress auch anders als Jungs. Mehr in den Körper rein. Jungs weichen eher aus. Reagieren sich ab, spielen Fußball oder raufen. Aber sie haben auch ein höheres Risiko, sich in Alkohol und Drogen zu flüchten.

Was schlagen Sie vor, um jetzt gegenzusteuern?

Gesundheitspolitisch allein kann man da wenig ausrichten. Den Jugendlichen zu sagen, sie sollen nicht trinken und nicht rauchen, wird kaum etwas nützen. Das Übel muss an der Wurzel gepackt werden. Es geht um eine fairere Verteilung von Macht, Geld und Bildung.

Wie verteilt man Bildung gerechter? In Nordrhein-Westfalen wird ja gerade wieder einmal über ein längeres gemeinsames Lernen gestritten.

Unser unsägliches Schulsystem, das soziale Selektion noch verstärkt, muss endlich erneuert werden. Wie, muss man sehen. Einige Bundesländer haben ja die Hauptschule endlich abgeschafft. So drastische Ergebnisse hätten wir in Ganztagsschulen sicher nicht erhalten.

Kann Bildung soziale Selektion verhindern?

Nein, das wohl nicht, aber sie kann sie mildern. Soziale Verhältnisse sind veränderbar. Schule kann helfen, diesen Prozess zu fördern, schließlich kann sie ihn auch verstärken, wie wir spätestens seit Pisa wissen.

----

Matthias Richter ist Professor für Medizinische Soziologie an der Universität Bern und Mitautor der an der Uni Bielefeld entstandenen Studie "Psychosoziale Gesundheit bei Kindern und Jugendlichen in Nordrhein-Westfalen: Die Bedeutung von Alter, Geschlecht und Schultyp". Befragt wurden 4300 Schüler im Alter von elf bis 15 Jahren.

Danach leidet jeder fünfte Heranwachsende an Problemen der psychosozialen Gesundheit.

Am stärksten belastet seien Mädchen und Hauptschüler. So schätzten zwar 85 Prozent aller Teilnehmer ihre Gesundheit als gut oder sogar ausgezeichnet ein. Doch nur zehn Prozent der Gymnasiasten bewerteten ihre Gesundheit eher negativ, aber 21 Prozent der Hauptschüler. Fragten die Forscher nach konkreten Symptomen wie Kopf- oder Rückenschmerzen, Schlafstörungen oder Nervosität, stieg die Zahl der Betroffenen: An mindestens zwei solcher, mehrmals wöchentlich auftretenden Probleme litten fast 27 Prozent der Mädchen, im Vergleich zu rund 18 Prozent der Jungen.

Während nur zwölf Prozent der Gymnasiasten mit ihrem Leben haderten, war Unzufriedenheit unter den Hauptschülern mit 28 Prozent mehr als doppelt so weit verbreitet.

Die "unfaire Verteilung von Bildung, Macht und Geld" hat Richter als Übel erkannt, das an der Wurzel gepackt werden müsse: "Unser unsägliches Schulsystem, das Selektion noch verstärkt, muss endlich erneuert werden." fra

Kein Gefühl mehr für sich selbst

[Rundschau-online, 05.01.10]

Von Michael Lenzen

Im Rahmen unserer Serie über Gewaltprävention stellen wir heute die Arbeit der psychologischen Beratungsstelle „Herbstmühle“ vor. Dort stehen besonders die Jungen im Blickpunkt.

Wipperfürth - Sie bietet Sprechstunden in den Schulen und ist oft Anlaufstelle für die Pädagogen, wenn es Schwierigkeiten mit Schülern gibt: die Psychologische Beratungsstelle für Eltern, Kinder und Jugendliche, kurz „Herbstmühle“ genannt. Getragen wird sie vom Verband der Katholischen Kirchengemeinden im Oberbergischen.

Zuständig ist die Einrichtung für Wipperfürth, Lindlar, Hückeswagen, Radevormwald, Marienheide und Engelskirchen mit rund 100 000 Einwohnern. 1200 Familien betreut die „Herbstmühle“ mit ihren acht Mitarbeitern pro Jahr. Dazu bietet sie Sprechstunden in neun Familienzentren und in Schulen an. „Allein können die Schulen nicht alles leisten“, sagt Leiter Ansgar Nowak. Seit zwölf Jahren arbeitet die Einrichtung mit den Schulen in Wipperfürth zusammen. An den beiden Gymnasien und an der Realschule gibt es eine wöchentliche Sprechstunde. „Mit der Hauptschule und der Förderschule haben wir eine gute Zusammenarbeit“, sagt der Diplom-Psychologe.

„Ich glaube nicht, dass es mehr Gewalt gibt als vor zehn oder 20 Jahren“, so Nowak. Sie werde aber deutlich wahrnehmbarer und sie fange auch deutlich früher an. Das Thema sei auch mehr in der Öffentlichkeit. Zudem würden sich immer mehr Betroffene offenbaren. „Gewalt ist in vielen Familien noch üblich, und das ist erschreckend.“ Meistens seien Jungen und junge Männer gewalttätig, Mädchen deutlich seltener.

Seit einigen Jahren registrieren die Fachleute um Ansgar Nowak eine neue Qualität der Gewalt. Bedingt durch Internetseiten wie etwa Schüler-VZ und Handy-Kameras. „Auf das Poster einer Playmate wurde etwa der Kopf einer Klassenkameradin montiert“, berichtet Sozialpädagoge Norbert Dörper. Oder es würden Fotos unter der Toilettentür hindurch gemacht. Die Bilder würden ins Internet gestellt, dazu kämen Rufschädigung oder Beleidigungen, auch per SMS. „Es gibt keinen allgemeinen Schlüssel wo Gewalt anfängt. Für manche Schüler kann schon das Bloßstellen ein traumatisierendes Erlebnis sein“, sagt Nowak.

Täglich werde in der Schule die Rangordnung, der Stellenwert in der Klasse und im sozialen Umfeld überprüft. Oft durch kleine Reibereien, wie Ärgern oder Schubsen, manchmal auch durch Schlägereien. Und die Experten beobachten noch eine andere Entwicklung: Den durch Eltern hervorgerufenen Leistungsdruck schon in der Grundschule. „Schließlich soll das Kind ja aufs Gymnasium“, so Dörper.

Doch Leistungsdruck sei keine Erklärung für die zunehmende Brutalität und die veränderte Qualität bei der Gewalt. „Es gibt bei einigen Jungen deutlich mehr Kälte, kein Gefühl für sich selbst, und daher auch kein Gefühl für das Gegenüber“, schildert er. Die liebevolle Hinwendung, der Respekt, die Bindung und die Vorbilder fehlten. Dabei sei gerade der persönliche Bezug entscheidend. Deswegen setze die Herbstmühle bei ihrer Jungenarbeit auf Akzeptanz, persönliche Wertschätzung und Verständnis für ihre männliche Persönlichkeit. Wobei die Frage „wann ist Mann ein Mann“ ein gesellschaftliches Problem sein. Es gebe viele Klischees von Siegern und Stärke. Die Anforderungen an Männer seien hoch. Männer strampelten sich ab und verwendeten einen großen Teil ihrer Energie für die Arbeit. Aber das werde kaum gewürdigt. Es fehle die gesellschaftliche Diskussion über die Rolle des Mannes.

Die „Herbstmühle“ will den auffälligen Jungen vermitteln: „Du darfst so sein wie Du bist“. Sie sollen sich mit ihren Stärken und Schwächen kennenlernen, ihre eigenen Bedürfnisse wahrnehmen, für Gewalt sensibilisiert werden. „Es ist wichtig, dass sie lernen, Verantwortung zu übernehmen“, sagt Nowak. In die Arbeit müssten auch die männlichen Bezugspersonen eingebunden werden. „Die Jungen brauchen mehr Männer, die sich in der Erziehung engagieren und sich Zeit nehmen. Jungen benötigen nicht nur Kampf, Druck und Konkurrenz, sondern auch Spaß und Begeisterung mit viel körperlicher Bewegung und sozialem Miteinander.“

In den letzten Jahren habe es viel Aktionen zu Mädchenförderung und Themen wie Sucht und Mobbing gegeben. Für spezielle Jungenarbeit fehlten oft noch konkrete Ansätze und engagierte Männer. „Es ist dringend nötig, dass Jungenarbeit ein wichtiges Thema in jeder Jugendeinrichtung oder Schule wird.“

All-boys schools foster ‘achievement culture'

[Globe and Mail, Oct. 21, 2009]

‘Boys will be boys.”

It's a classic refrain sputtered by exasperated teachers.

But the phrase has taken on new meaning as a growing number of educators say, “Let them.”

This week, Toronto District School Board director Chris Spence unveiled a proposal for the first all-boy school in Canada's elementary public school system.

The boys leadership academy would be optional and start at kindergarten to Grade 3, adding grades each successive year.

It's the latest attempt in the public system to create separate learning environments where boys don't have to sit still and raise their hands, where they're encouraged to be competitive, and where they're free from the presence of girls who are increasingly outperforming them in class.

As statistics continue to show that boys suffer in the school system while girls thrive, experts say separating genders into different schools could be the way of the future.

“It'll be transformational for the kids who reach that school,” says Brad Adams, the Toronto-based executive director of the International Boy's School Coalition.

Public elementary boys' schools have been long established in the rest of the world, he says, citing examples in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Britain. Many successful public boys' schools have cropped up in the United States in recent years.

Canadian public school boards have been quicker to embrace girls-only schools. Calgary's Alice Jamieson Girls Academy runs from grades 4 through 9 as part of the co-ed Stanley Jones School. The chartered Calgary Girls' School runs independently from the school boards but isn't private. Holy Angels High School in Sydney, N.S., will graduate its 125th class next spring.

“[The all girls environment] gives them the opportunity to mature, to become leaders, to discover who they really are without the distractions of boys,” says Holy Angels principal Theresa MacKenzie.

All-boys' schools offer the same safe place to build character and concentration, Mr. Adams says. “A boys' school is an achievement culture, and keeps it clearly in focus in a way that sometimes a co-ed school doesn't do as well.”

But some question the validity of the boy-girl split. Annie Kidder, the executive director of People for Education, a parent-led advocacy group, has seen co-ed classes where students run around in the morning, rain or shine, before settling down for lessons. The active learning approach benefits both boys and girls, she says. “Maybe we should be taking some lessons from boys – that they know some secrets here, that this is a good thing.”

Schools may also be more comfortable splitting genders by classroom rather than segregating the schoolyards. Of the 545 known American schools that offer single-sex education, only 91 count as single-sex schools.

Doug Trimble, principal of Cecil B. Stirling School in Hamilton, Ont., which, for seven years, has run single-sex classes in grades 6 through 8, says having boys and girls eat lunch together is just as important as having them learn in classrooms apart.

But proponents of single-sex schools point to the success of private schools as educational models. The main challenge, they suggest, is changing attitudes to how public education should be offered. “The kind of established viewpoint has been that co-education is normal and normative and single-gender education isn't,” he says. “It's been highly ideologically charged.”

Some single-sex schools have faltered because they reinforce gender stereotypes, says Leonard Sax, a physician and director of the U.S.-based National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Some switch to all-boys schools without proper training, with disastrous results.

“If you simply put all the boys in one room and one building and you put in teachers who have no preparation as to how to lead a boy's classroom, the boys will start throwing things and the teachers will be dismayed,” he says.

Like Africentric schools, aboriginal schools and even French immersion, boys-only schooling will take hold because it's acknowledging different educational needs, says Larry Swartz, who teaches at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

“I don't think it's going to be fast,” he says. “I think they're going to pay attention to a) the community, b) the needs, but always looking to some research that will guide them.”

Irreconcilable differences

Single-sex education is built on the idea that boys and girls learn differently. While the concept has its contenders, research has shown boys tend to be more active learners than girls.

“Boys need to move, girls have the ability to sit still and work,” says principal Doug Trimble of Cecil B. Stirling school in Hamilton.

Boys thrive on team competition and relish a battle against a buddy, while girls would rather be on the same team, says Leonard Sax, director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (he recalls a Scottish high school that had boys write competing newspaper fronts reporting the death of Romeo and Juliet).

Girls tend to look at their teacher as a friend or ally, while boys don't. Girls also tend to appreciate context, while boys are bored by it, Dr. Sax says

While girls can wait a day or two for feedback, boys tend to need it right away, Mr. Trimble says.

“When it comes to completing the task, girls like to see beginning, middle and the end,” Mr. Trimble says. “Boys just want to get started.”

La educación, factor de igualdad

Revista del Consejo Escolar del Estado, n.11, 2009

"La educación, factor de igualdad"

ENLACE

ÍNDICE

Monográfico

Del Amo del Amo, Mª Cruz: La educación de las mujeres en España:
de la “amiga” a la Universidad ............................................................................... 8-22

Rubio Castro, Ana: El abandono y la falta de éxito de los chicos en la escuela,
un problema de género ..................................................................................................... 23-39

Blat Gimeno, Teresa: Resultados académicos y relación formación-empleo
según el sexo ...................................................................................................................... 40-58

Estudios e Investigaciones

Díaz-Aguado Jalón, Mª José: Convivencia escolar y prevención de la
violencia de género desde una perspectiva integral ................................................. 59-72

Castaño Collado, Cecilia: Los usos de Internet en las edades más jóvenes:
algunos datos y refl exiones sobre hogar, escuela, estudios y juegos ................. 73-93

Tribuna Abierta

Subirats Martori, Marina: La escuela mixta ¿garantía de coeducación? ................ 94-97

García Cebrián, L. y Manzano Gómez, Á.: Caminando hacia la coeducación ........ 98-104

Gonzalo Valgañón, Altamira: La aplicación de la Ley de medidas de
protección integral contra la violencia de género ............................................ 105-109

González López, Isabel: La orientación académica y profesional en clave de igualdad ...... 110-121

Entrevista

Miguel Lorente Acosta: Todas las mujeres pueden ser víctimas, incluso
las más activas y libres ..................................................................................... 122-127

Firma invitada

Martínez López, Cándida: Escuelas de igualdad ................................................ 128-131

Experiencias

Coba Arango, E.; Grañeras Pastrana, M.; Gil Novoa, N. y Ruiz Veerman,
E: Los Premios Irene, la paz empieza en casa ............................................... 132-138

Heredero de Pedro, C. y Muñoz Hernández, E.: Más y mejor coeducación ....... 139-145

Vieites Conde, C. y Martínez Ten, L.: Ciento treinta actividades para
coeducar. Una propuesta para incorporar la igualdad en la escuela .............. 146-152

Pastor Julián, Ana: Una trayectoria vital............................................................... 153-155

El patrimonio en la escuela

Capel Martínez, Rosa Mª: El archivo de la Residencia de Señoritas .................. 156-161

Infante, Sor Mª Ángeles: Patrimonio de la escuela vicenciana en
España. Archivo y museo de la Casa Provincial San Vicente. Madrid ............ 162-174

Crespo de Las Heras, S. y Del Amo del Amo, Mª C.: Reconocimiento a
Mª Ángeles Galino Carrillo: docente, investigadora y gestora educativa ........ 175-181

Se buscan desesperadamente educadores y maestros de escuela

WENZEL, presidente de BLLV, objeta una injusta política de empleo, que lleva a una feminización en las escuelas básicas y en los institutos de día.

[Bildungs Klick, München, 25.08.2008] 

El presidente de la unión de maestros y maestras de Baviera (BLLV), Klaus Wenzel, ha advertido sobre una adicional feminización de la profesión de maestros en todas las escuelas. Especialmente dramática es la situación en las escuelas básicas. También en los lugares de día, muy rara vez se encuentran varones. Los oficios de maestro/ a y educador/a  en las escuelas básicas son mal pagados y apenas ofrecen posibilidades de ascenso.

“Eso constituye injusta política de empleo “critica Wenzel.” Constituye una irresponsabilidad cuando los políticos de la educación y de la escolaridad acepten que a los chicos les faltan nociones de roles masculinos. Las consecuencias físicas y anímicas en chicos y chicas pueden ser dramáticas“. La profesión de maestros y de educadores tiene que ser igualmente atractivo para mujeres como para varones. A eso se agregan la valuación del trabajo, pero antes que nada una remuneración justa y posibilidades de ascenso. “Sólo así  se puede aumentar la atractividad de estas profesiones y aumentar a largo plazo la actualmente baja participación de varones”.

Educadores y maestros tienen impulsos diferentes a los de sus colegas femeninas. Por eso es importante ocuparse de una equilibrada presencia de ambos géneros. Wenzel: “chicos y chicas deben tener la oportunidad de orientarse con ambos géneros. Los varones y las mujeres solo pueden vivir una relación personal común en la que ambos se encuentran con reconocimiento de valores y respeto mutuo, cuando en su vida diaria existen varones y mujeres“. A muchos chicos les faltan  figuras de roles masculinos. Muchos recién después del cambio a la escuela secundaria entran en contacto durable con puntos de referencia masculinos. Casi uno de cada tres matrimonios en Alemania  es divorciado. 20 % de las madres educan a sus hijos sin los padres. De los tres millones de educadores solos, el 80 %  son mujeres. La mayoría de los chicos de matrimonios separados crecen junto a la madre. Pero también en familias intactas, muchos chicos crecen  viendo pocas veces al padre.

En las escuelas y lugares de día, este déficit continúa: en 2005/06, entre los estudiantes en profesorado para escuela básica, sólo 1 de cada 18 era varón, en el estado de Baviera, o bien a cada 944 mujeres correspondían 52 varones. La participación sigue estando hoy en el aproximadamente 6 %. En esa relación se encuentran sub-representados los varones en las escuelas  básicas de Baviera : allí enseñan hoy un 86 % de mujeres. Expresado en números: Del total de fuerzas de educación de las escuelas básicas de Baviera, incluidos los especialistas en ciertas materias, que asciende a 27.455,  23.535 son mujeres. En institutos, escuelas reales y escuelas principales, las cantidades aún son equilibradas. Sin embargo, por las cifras de los alumnos, es de prever que en poco tiempo también allí comience a crecer el número de mujeres. Cerca de “libres de varones“ son los jardines de infantes: la proporción de mujeres está en 98,9 %. Básicamente es válido: cuanto más jóvenes los alumnos, tanto mayor la proporción de mujeres. “La escasez de maestros y educadores, no pasa sin consecuencias por el alumno que está en desarrollo“ , destacó Wenzel. Los pocos maestros y educadores en el ambiente elemental está visto por los chicos como casos de excepción y de atracción. Por esa razón obtienen una mayor atención por parte del alumnado; por eso es alto el peligro de que se desfigure esa apreciación.

Una serie de estudios certifican mientras tanto que los varones sufren bajo la feminización de la profesión de maestros y educadores. También es válido que las chicas toman mayor conciencia de sí mismas si se encuentran frente a roles masculinos y además se las toma más en serio.

El Presidente de la BLLV estimuló al gobierno de Baviera a cuidar de que haya un mayor equilibrio entre varones y mujeres en todo tipo de escuelas y  jardines de infantes. “Esto no puede hacerse sin inversiones masivas en el nivel educativo elemental“ aclaró. “El ingreso actual de las educadoras es vergonzante. También deja que desear el pago de las maestras de escuela básica. Nadie debe asombrarse si los hombres prefieren profesiones en el comercio libre. Pero ante todo, las educadoras y las maestras de escuela básica necesitan tener más tiempo disponible y clases más pequeñas o grupos más reducidos, para poder actuar frente a los varones con mayor dedicación en cuanto a una mayor sensibilidad  ante necesidades especiales e intereses y para poder considerar adecuadamente las diferencias de género entre varones y chicas”.-

‘The Alpha Effect’. Assessing how boys and girls influence each other

[Newsweek, Jan 2, 2008]

Evan Thomas

A few years ago a dean at Dartmouth College remarked to some friends that she was a little disappointed by the progress of coeducation at Dartmouth, an excellent and famous school but one with a long and well-earned reputation for hard-drinking fraternity boys. After Dartmouth went coed in the '70s, said the dean, she had hoped that the women would civilize the men. Instead, the opposite happened: the men made ruffians of the women.

I thought of that remark when I read an article in the January issue of Harvard magazine about Dan Kindlon, a clinical psychologist and adjunct lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the author of a book, "Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World" (2006). Kindlon speaks approvingly about watching his daughter Julia, a softball catcher, defending the plate against a base runner, another girl, who knocks her down. A little scraped and bruised, Julia picks herself up and feels a sense of pride. "It was a character-building experience that very few girls growing up in an earlier generation had a chance to have," says Kindlon. "People who say that girls aren't competitive and don't enjoy winning have never gone to a game and watched!"

Kindlon reports signs of the "alpha girl" psychology not just in the "mean girl" type that has long dominated the high-school cafeteria but in all girls. It's a legacy of "emancipated confidence" bequeathed by feminism over the past three or four decades—almost two generations by now. In the '80s and '90s psychologists worried about young teen girls losing their confidence, but those fears have abated as these girls have plunged into the male world as equals (and even superiors: girls are at least marginally better at the skills and work habits that get you into college these days and now count for majorities of the entering classes at law and medical schools).

Girls may be becoming "alphas," but I think Kindlon is missing something here. By becoming more aggressively confident, girls have sacrificed qualities that more boys should aspire to or seek to emulate. Along the way, an early premise of feminism has been distorted, if not turned upside down. In the early '80s Carol Gilligan, who held the first chair in gender studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, "lamented that girls in their teens compromised their authenticity to fit gender roles, thereby 'losing their voice'." Girls were more naturally into relationships and sought consensus, whereas boys prized individuality and cared about justice, Gilligan wrote. Apparently, these days the girls have become more like boys—tougher, more aggressive about asserting their individuality. But that's not what Gilligan and an earlier generation of feminists, including that Dartmouth dean, were hoping for: they wanted the boys to become more like girls, softer and kinder, if you will, but also more emotionally mature about human relationships.

I see the "alpha effect" at Princeton, where I teach a course on narrative writing. The women are strong and confident and often outperform the boys. They are as career-minded and focused as their male peers. But there are some shadows. Not a few of them seem sad about a social system that prizes the one-night hookup and downplays (and indeed has pretty well eliminated) courtship. There is probably less heedless college sex than parents fear, and we should be thankful for the confidence and toughness that many girls show. Still, it's too bad that the boys have not progressed as far as the girls. The Dartmouth dean was right: the girls could have a civilizing effect on the boys. But I don't think it will happen until the girls insist on it—that the boys treat them with more respect.

‘The Alpha Effect’. Assessing how boys and girls influence each other

[Newsweek, Jan 2, 2008]


Evan Thomas

A few years ago a dean at Dartmouth College remarked to some friends that she was a little disappointed by the progress of coeducation at Dartmouth, an excellent and famous school but one with a long and well-earned reputation for hard-drinking fraternity boys. After Dartmouth went coed in the '70s, said the dean, she had hoped that the women would civilize the men. Instead, the opposite happened: the men made ruffians of the women.

I thought of that remark when I read an article in the January issue of Harvard magazine about Dan Kindlon, a clinical psychologist and adjunct lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and the author of a book, "Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World" (2006). Kindlon speaks approvingly about watching his daughter Julia, a softball catcher, defending the plate against a base runner, another girl, who knocks her down. A little scraped and bruised, Julia picks herself up and feels a sense of pride. "It was a character-building experience that very few girls growing up in an earlier generation had a chance to have," says Kindlon. "People who say that girls aren't competitive and don't enjoy winning have never gone to a game and watched!"

Kindlon reports signs of the "alpha girl" psychology not just in the "mean girl" type that has long dominated the high-school cafeteria but in all girls. It's a legacy of "emancipated confidence" bequeathed by feminism over the past three or four decades—almost two generations by now. In the '80s and '90s psychologists worried about young teen girls losing their confidence, but those fears have abated as these girls have plunged into the male world as equals (and even superiors: girls are at least marginally better at the skills and work habits that get you into college these days and now count for majorities of the entering classes at law and medical schools).

Girls may be becoming "alphas," but I think Kindlon is missing something here. By becoming more aggressively confident, girls have sacrificed qualities that more boys should aspire to or seek to emulate. Along the way, an early premise of feminism has been distorted, if not turned upside down. In the early '80s Carol Gilligan, who held the first chair in gender studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, "lamented that girls in their teens compromised their authenticity to fit gender roles, thereby 'losing their voice'." Girls were more naturally into relationships and sought consensus, whereas boys prized individuality and cared about justice, Gilligan wrote. Apparently, these days the girls have become more like boys—tougher, more aggressive about asserting their individuality. But that's not what Gilligan and an earlier generation of feminists, including that Dartmouth dean, were hoping for: they wanted the boys to become more like girls, softer and kinder, if you will, but also more emotionally mature about human relationships.

I see the "alpha effect" at Princeton, where I teach a course on narrative writing. The women are strong and confident and often outperform the boys. They are as career-minded and focused as their male peers. But there are some shadows. Not a few of them seem sad about a social system that prizes the one-night hookup and downplays (and indeed has pretty well eliminated) courtship. There is probably less heedless college sex than parents fear, and we should be thankful for the confidence and toughness that many girls show. Still, it's too bad that the boys have not progressed as far as the girls. The Dartmouth dean was right: the girls could have a civilizing effect on the boys. But I don't think it will happen until the girls insist on it—that the boys treat them with more respect.

Stay-at-home fathers may harm boys’ education

[The Times, November 23, 2007]

Rosemary Bennett

Fathers who give up their jobs to care for young sons could be damaging their education, research suggests.

Boys who have been looked after by their fathers for 15 hours a week or more are less prepared for school than those brought up by their mothers. They also struggle to keep up once they get there, it concluded.

The study, which drew on data from 6,000 families in Bristol, found that daughters were unaffected when mothers and fathers swapped traditional roles. The results were the same regardless of how wealthy the family was.

The findings come as the Government is encouraging fathers to take more time off work to help to care for their children. They are entitled to two weeks’ paternity leave, three months’ parental leave and can work part-time.

Elizabeth Washbrook, research associate at Bristol University and author of the report, said: “When in charge, fathers may be more inclined to see their task as fulfilled by monitoring the child and seeing to their physical needs, and so less inclined to devise creative activities that develop the child’s intellectual skills.”
She said that when it came to daughters, it was possible that fathers were making more of an effort or that daughters needed less external stimulation. The report discovered that the problems with paternal care only began when the child turned one.

But Adrienne Burgess, research manager for Fathers Direct, said that choice was a crucial factor. She said that problems occurred when fathers had to look after their children because they had lost their jobs and the mother might not be happy about the situation. “It does not appear this research has factored that in,” she said.

She said that there were other concerns about the lack of a support network for fathers, which often led to loneliness and isolation. Mothers tend to form strong local networks, socialise together with their children and swap tips about child rearing.

Body Image and the Appearance Culture Among Adolescent Girls and Boys

Body Image and the Appearance Culture Among Adolescent Girls and Boys: An Examination of Friend Conversations, Peer Criticism, Appearance Magazines, and the Internalization of Appearance Ideals.

by: Diane Carlson Jones, Thorbjorg Helga Vigfusdottir and Yoonsun Lee

This research evaluates the contributions of three dimensions of appearance culture (appearance magazine exposure, appearance conversations with friends, and peer appearance criticism) and body mass index (BMI) to internalization of appearance ideals and body image dissatisfaction. Four hundred thirty-three girls and 347 boys in Grades 7 through 10 responded to several measures on a self-report questionnaire. The results of path analyses indicated that Internalization mediated the relationship between Appearance Conversations With Friends and Body Dissatisfaction for both boys and girls. In addition, Internalization, Peer Appearance Criticism, and BMI made direct contributions to Body Dissatisfaction for boys and girls, although the strength of the relationships varied by gender. The proposed mediated relation between Appearance Magazine Exposure and Body Dissatisfaction was confirmed only for the girls. The findings provide needed information about the contributions of the peer appearance culture to internalization and body image disturbances for adolescent boys and girls.

Der Mann in der Grundschule

[WZ-Newsline, 09.11.2007]

Norbert Sanner ist einzige männliche Lehrkraft in Hobeuken. Er sieht ein Imageproblem seines Berufsstandes.

Nicht der „Normalfall“: Norbert Sanner in seiner Klasse 4 an der Grundschule Hobeuken . . . und als einziger Lehrer im Kreis der Kolleginnen.
Sprockhövel. „Guten Morgen, Herr Sanner.“ Artig begrüßen die Viertklässler der Grundschule Hobeuken ihren Klassenlehrer. Für sie ein alltägliches Ritual und doch nicht ganz normal, denn die Anrede „Herr“ ist in Grundschulklassen in NRW die Ausnahme, auch in Sprockhövel. An den fünf Grundschulen der Stadt gibt es derzeit nur drei männliche Lehrkräfte.

Woran das liegt? Norbert Sanner hat sich darüber kaum Gedanken gemacht. Für ihn war es ganz normal, dass er in der Lehrerausbildung und dann ab 2000 im Schuldienst nur auf wenige Kollegen getroffen ist. „Ich habe ganz bewusst die Grundschullaufbahn gewählt, weil ich meine, da noch mehr bewegen zu können. Die Kinder sind kleiner und in gewisser Hinsicht noch formbarer“, nennt er seine Motive.

So denken aber offenbar nicht viele Männer. Sanner: „Der Beruf Grundschullehrer hat auch ein Imageproblem nach dem Motto: das bisschen Schreiben, Lesen und Rechnen beibringen kann doch jeder.“ Darin sieht auch Schulrat Joachim Niewil eine der Ursachen dafür, dass sich die meisten Lehrer für die weiterführende Schulen entscheiden. Niewil: „Dabei sind die Aufgaben in der Grundschule vielschichtiger.

Man ist nicht nur Wissensvermittler, sondern viel stärker auch Organisator und Berater der Eltern.“ Die Gefahr, dass gerade den Jungen männliche Vorbilder fehlen, Kinder, die bei einer alleinerziehenden Mutter aufwachsen, vielleicht erst in der 5. Klasse männliche Führungspersonen erleben, sieht er durchaus.
Gerade hat Schulministerim Barbara Sommer dazu aufgerufen, das Ansehen des Grundschullehrerberufs zu heben, um mehr männliche Lehrkräfte an die Grundschulen zu bekommen. „Das wäre toll“, sagt Niewil, „kurzfristig ist aber wohl nichts zu machen.“ An der Uni Dortmund etwa, wo er an der Grundschullehrerausbildung mitwirkt, seien zuletzt von 50 Prüflingen 49 Frauen gewesen, aktuell sei gar kein einziger Mann dabei.

Birgit Reinhold-Becker, Rektorin in Hobeuken, ist sich sicher, dass man neben dem Image auch die Rahmenbedingungen verbessern müsste. „Bei A13-Besoldung ist Schluss, sonst kann man nur noch Schulleiter werden. Da winken viele Männer ab, gerade wenn sie eine Familie ernähren müssen. Dabei ist die Belastung eines Grundschullehrers enorm hoch“, sagt sie.

Sie empfindet es als sehr angenehm, einen Mann im Kollegium zu haben. „Der nimmt manche Dinge nicht so lange wichtig, über die sich Frauen noch ärgern“, sagt sie. Auch wenn es um den Umgang mit Klamotten, um Sportunterricht oder Naturwissenschaften gehe, hätten Männer oft einen lockereren Zugang, der gerade den Jungs gut tue. So wünscht sich auch Judith Kurth, Schulleiterin in Gennebreck, gerade für den Sportunterricht einmal einen Lehrer. Den gibt es an ihrer Schule seit Jahren nicht.

Empfinden die Viertklässler in Hobeuken es denn als Vorteil, einen Lehrer zu haben? „Eigentlich egal“, sagt Joachim, ergänzt dann aber „der kann gut Fußball spielen.“ Eilean meint: „Lehrer haben eine lautere Stimme und können uns besser ermahnen.“

Dass Sanner in der Pause drei Poesiealben zugesteckt bekommt, nennt der Lehrer eher Zufall. „Die bekommen unsere Lehrerinnen genauso“, versichert er.

Von Günter Hiege

Friendships, Peer Influence and Peer Pressure During the Teen Years

[August 2007]

María R. T. de Guzman. University of Nebraska.

School friends key to success

[www.sciencealert.com.au, Sunday, 19 August 2007]

Massey University

Boys say having friends at school and having a lot of physical activity are very important for their happiness and success.

These were priorities for most of the more than 350 secondary schoolboys interviewed by University researcher Michael Irwin in a study of what boys believe enhances and inhibits academic success.

Auckland-based Mr Irwin, from the College of Education, initiated New Zealand’s first national conferences on the under-achievement of boys and has been at the forefront of research exploring the reasons why boys lag behind girls at school and feature in many of the negative statistics relating to accidents, learning difficulties, and educational achievement.

Asking boys themselves what makes school a good place for them to be is, he says, an important part of providing successful education for them.
He found that having a group of friends, supporting them socially and assisting and motivating them educationally, was a huge factor in boys’ lives.
“Almost without exception the boys I interviewed said being with their mates at school was very important to them. I have found that throughout their schooling these close groups of, say three to five boys, are very important to each boy individually in significant ways. They develop their own identity through these groupings, they share ideas, they will often discuss learning issues in these groups and it is often these ties that have a very positive influence in keeping them at school.”

Physical exercise was also a high priority and Mr Irwin says schools need to look seriously at how they meet this need.

“Schools need to provide much more opportunity than they currently do for boys to be physically active. We know from existing research that physical activity and sport brings many benefits from bonding to stress release, mental stimulation and providing an outlet for competitive spirits.”

He also found boys wanted learning to be challenging and for school to be fun.
“They don’t want learning to be too hard or too easy. They want to be challenged and they feel the best way of meeting those challenges is to work together in groups with a problem-solving, hands-on approach.

“Most showed a high dislike of what they felt to be too much copying and writing things down at school.

“Almost all wanted to have fun, to have a laugh and for their environment to be one that they enjoy. This is the same thing that motivation researchers are also telling us.

“Schools need to take note of what matters most for boys at school – the importance of mates, the need for physical activity and for challenge in learning and the desire for school to be fun.”

Mr Irwin’s research highlighted some common attributes boys expected of their teachers. They wanted their teachers to focus on learning not content, to use humour, to collaborate and listen, to explain, to set clear expectations, to help them individually, to give specific feedback, to use activity based learning and co-operative learning, to be fair in managing behaviour.

Male teachers: A strong answer to peer pressure

Telegraph.co.uk, 01-08-2007


As a survey of eight to 11-year-olds reveals that 39 per cent of boys have no male teachers, former teacher Kurt Browne explains why male role models in schools are vital

He was one of the brightest boys in the year, with supportive parents but when he was 15 he suddenly stopped trying.

He left school at 16 with two GCSEs and two children by different girls. He felt very proud of himself. I'm convinced that one of the reasons that made it cool for him not to care was the power of his peer group.

Peer pressure is one of the strongest influences on boys today and one reason why so many are leaving school with no qualifications and virtually no chance of getting a job.

The absence of positive male role models in many of their lives - at home and particularly in the school environment - means that their peers are the only people they have to judge themselves against.

More male teachers in primary schools mean we could pre-empt this problem. Once boys reach year 10 (at 15), a surge of masculinity takes over and they will want to assert their authority, and challenge both parents and teachers.
The teacher's battle is then against testosterone, the peer group and the street where the culture is never to back down to authority no matter what.

I have spent all my adult life trying to help disaffected boys. I was born in Trinidad but came to London when I was 19 because my father could see I was mixing with the wrong crowd at home.

I did ''A'' levels followed by a teaching degree then, in 1984, became a youth worker in the tough Stonebridge Estate in north-west London.

I met many parents in despair because their children were failing in school so I decided if I wanted to make a difference, then I would teach.

I taught RE and PE for 20 years in comprehensives and in 2000 I became the lead learning mentor in my school, supporting children through their problems and motivating them.

Many former pupils have told me that I've been like a father to them.
Some parents have low expectations for their children and that is another reason for failure. Boys in particular don't value education.

They don't see men succeeding in the professional world so it doesn't occur to them that they could make something of themselves.

Schools are at fault here, too. Due to the immense pressure on teachers to gain results, students are spoon-fed and trained to pass exams, rather than encouraged to think for themselves.

Instead schools must help children learn to take responsibility for their education and their lives. After all, school is the most powerful influence on youngsters after their parents.

We can't change a child's mother or father, but schools can provide the environment for change, and provide the right role models for them.

Without male teachers as an alternative role model, the influence of peers and street culture is all-powerful. Boys want to be part of a club or gang.
Teachers need to be trained to challenge that but not in front of a child's peers. You have to do it one to one, because that is when you see the real child without bravado.

It's pointless sending a child home if he or she has done wrong. They see it as a welcome day off to watch television or play computer games.

Instead schools should have a special unit where a child who misbehaves goes for the day and is counselled about his behaviour -somewhere he can work away from his peers and go home after the other children.

We need to build up a culture of education; ditch political correctness and give teachers the means to do the right thing.

We have to make it cool to learn rather than cool to be deviant, and to do that we need more men in the classrooms to show young boys that there is another path they could take.

· Kurt Browne was talking to Angela Levin

Leave those kids alone

The idea that adults should be playing with their kids is a modern invention -- and not necessarily a good one (The Boston Globe, July 15, 2007)

By Christopher Shea

WHAT COULD BE more natural than a mother down on the rec-room floor, playing with her 3-year-old amid puzzles, finger-puppets, and Thomas the Tank Engine trains? Look -- now she's conducting a conversation between a stuffed shark and Nemo, the Pixar clown fish! Giggles all around. Not to mention that the tot is learning the joys of stories and narrative, setting him on a triumphal path toward school.

A "natural" scene? Actually, parent-child play of this sort has been virtually unheard of throughout human history, according to the anthropologist David Lancy. And three-fourths of the world's current population would still find that mother's behavior kind of dotty.American-style parent-child play is a distinct feature of wealthy developed countries -- a recent byproduct of the pressure to get kids ready for the information-age economy,

Lancy argues in a recent article in American Anthropologist, the field's flagship journal in the United States."Adults think it is silly to play with children" in most cultures, says Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University. Play is a cultural universal, he concedes, "but adults aren't part of the picture." Yet middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans -- abetted, he says, by psychologists -- are increasingly proclaiming the parents-on-all-fours style the One True Way to raise a smart, well-adjusted child.There is now a concerted effort to spread adult-child play beyond its stronghold in the upper- and middle-classes of wealthy countries. To this end, many cities and states support programs of some sort. Massachusetts will give the Parent-Child Home Program, which has 33 sites in the state, $3 million this year (up from $2 million last year). Through the program, staff members visit the homes of low-income residents and offer tips not just on good books for toddlers but also on "play activities" for parents and kids. Likewise, the eminent Yale psychologist Jerome Singer has partnered with a media company to devise imaginative parent-child games (examples: "My Magic Story Car" and "Puppets: Counting") that librarians and social workers can teach to low-income parents.

Lancy is concerned that specialists behind the movement -- psychologists, social workers, preschool teachers -- are too aggressively promoting this intense, interventionist parenting style to low-income parents, and that they are are too quick to claim that adult-child play is crucial for human development. He doesn't quite rule out that some interventions may improve literacy -- though the data are murkier than the psychologists admit, he insists. But the programs, with their premise (as he sees it) that a whole class of people is simply parenting badly, leave their advocates "open to charges of racism or cultural imperialism."

One inspiration for the article, Lancy says, was that he kept coming across accounts of parents who felt guilty that they did not enjoy playing with their children. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger, both at Princeton, have found that parents routinely claim that playing with their kids is among their favorite activities, but when you ask them to record their state of mind, hour by hour, they rate time spent with their children as being about as much fun as housework.

In his article, Lancy draws on decades of ethnographic work to show how rare parent-child play has been in the world. The Harvard anthropologist Robert LeVine, for example, observed in a 2004 paper that among the Gusii people of Kenya, "mothers rarely looked at or spoke to their infants and toddlers, even when they were holding and breast-feeding them." (So much for the universality of peek-a-boo.) On Ifaluk Island, in the South Pacific, tribespeople believe that babies are "essentially brainless" before age 2, so there is no point in talking to them.

The goal of the Yucatec Maya is to keep babies in a "kind of benign coma," through bathing and swaddling, so that parents can leave them and get work done. As recently as 1914, the US Department of Labor's Child Bureau advised parents not to play with babies, for fear of overstimulating their little nervous systems.

If interactions with babies are rare in much of the world, "mother-toddler play is virtually nonexistent," Lancy writes.

To be sure, there are exceptions. Some African foraging tribes display striking examples of parental playfulness. And the Inuit make toys for their toddlers and get goofy -- but they're cooped up for months at a time in igloos, bored witless. Lancy suggests that the American milieu -- caregivers stuck, without a community, in oversized homes -- is not entirely dissimilar.

Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at Berkeley, agrees with parts of Lancy's argument: In much of the world, parents are unlikely to be the main caregivers, and Americans go overboard with structured parent-child play which has explicit academic goals. But she says that Lancy vastly understates the interactions between parents and children. In many cultures, mothers hold their babies much, much more than American mothers do, and holding and cuddling a child can be as stimulating and playful as peek-a-boo, she says.

"The fact that non-Western parents do not interact with their babies like Western parents doesn't mean they aren't interacting with them," Gopnik says.

And if African children learn from older siblings how to use a bow-and-arrow in a playful way, she asks, how different is that from American parents (or nannies) playfully teaching kids practices useful in American culture, such as verbal agility?

Tribal practices aside, the real source of contention is what sort of child-rearing advice low-income Americans should be receiving from social workers, psychologists, and other people interested in improving the academic readiness of poor kids. Yale's Singer, co-author (with his wife, Dorothy) of "The House of Make-Believe: Children's Play and the Developing Imagination" (1990), says his data show that children who played versions of "My Magic Story Car," in which a parent pretends to drive with the kids to various locations, having adventures along the way (with a subtle vocab lesson or two thrown in), do better on literacy tests than their peers.

"I'm not clear what's bothering this guy," he says, referring to Lancy. "We are not talking about the parents playing all day long with the children. We're just saying that children need to play, and particular kinds of play -- imaginative play that has a storytelling element to it -- are very useful" in our culture.

Still, the proselytizing on behalf of playful middle-class approaches vexes many anthropologists. A crystallizing moment for their concern came with the publication of a lengthy article in The New York Times Magazine last November by Paul Tough, an editor at the magazine, on efforts by some educators to erase cultural differences between low-income and middle-class students.

Tough leaned on the work of the University of Maryland sociologist Annette Lareau, who has described the dominant middle- and upper-middle-class parenting style as one of "concerted cultivation": scheduled time, interactive banter and play, and the encouragement of the child to challenge the parent's opinions. In contrast, she summarizes the low-income parents' approach as "the accomplishment of natural growth": less direct involvement with the kids, more unsupervised play, and more enforcement of rules.

More controversial than the sociological work was Tough's summary -- that poor parents fail to deliver "everyday intellectual and emotional stimuli" or to impart "character," "self-control, adaptability, patience, and openness."

Mica Pollock, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, says it's one thing to encourage low-income parents to read to their kids or tell them stories. But "it's a huge and dangerous overstatement to say that low-income parents don't stimulate their children." In fact, some research, she says, suggests that the approach used by some low-income parents teaches virtues such as patience and adaptability better than more freewheeling parenting styles.

And let's not idealize middle-class kids: "Some of those children are being raised to be spoiled, demanding, requiring constant adult attention, and inclined to argue with their parents," Pollock says.

This debate is unlikely to sway the convictions of the pro-play crowd. Stevanne Auerbach, the author of "Smart Play, Smart Toys: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ" -- play quotient -- says her goal is to "encourage parents to understand that they are their children's first big toy." But for the parents not energized by the prospect of all those hours in the playroom -- parents who would rather be doing something else -- Lancy's article offers the solace that comes from knowing you're not alone, globally or historically. Goodbye Thomas the Tank Engine, hello sports pages?

Recruiting males teachers is a waste of time

By Maralyn Parker, (News.com.au, July 11, 2007)

TRYING to recruit more males into teaching may be worse than a waste of time. According to a new report some male teachers can be bad for boys.

The 140-page report from the education department in England, Gender and Education: The Evidence on Pupils in England, claims male teachers are more likely to treat boys harshly and can have lower academic expectations of boys. Female teachers are more likely to have equal expectations of boys and girls and are less likely to be harsh with boys just because they are boys.

Researchers also found there was little evidence boys and girls had different learning styles - a small bombshell that may prick the pomposity of some high-fee private schools marketing themselves as specialists in boy-style teaching. Researchers also soundly rejected the claim that girls need "less active, less structured, less interactive, less varied pedagogy" than boys. If you are already composing an email - yes there are different styles of learning such as visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (touching, feeling, using).

The report said there are benefits in talking about and using different styles in the classroom. And some students may prefer one style or different combinations. However to be successful learners children need to be able to use all the different styles at different times for different purposes. So any school favouring one style of learning is doing its students a serious disservice. It reminds me of the left brain-right brain fad. We were told we probably favour one or the other - and the associated but very different skills.

Then scientists found the brain did not work so simply, that we used both sides when doing things previously considered either right brain or left brain. It looks like the boy and girls styles of learning are now also debunked. As for single-sex schools and single-sex classes, research remains "inconsistent and inconclusive." Separating sexes for modern languages can be positive for boys and for science and maths, can be positive for girls. But researchers pointed out when a school sets up single-sex classes there is an increased emphasis on teaching which may improve the quality of that teaching.

Also schools will often select their best teachers to take these classes, especially the all-boy classes, which will also affect outcomes. But probably the most significant finding is that the biggest gaps in achievement at school are not between boys and girls but between social classes and ethnic groups. Poor children and black children are the biggest losers. And researchers say that is what the English Government should really be worried about if it wants a clever future.

All I can say is ditto to all of that for Australia.

The school environment is not particularly boy-friendly, some experts say

Published: January 23, 2002

By Michelle Galley

Belmont, Mass.

In the fall of 1998, Peter Holland, the superintendent here, wondered if something was amiss. A disproportionate majority of the high school students being inducted into the National Honor Society were girls. Many more girls than boys were receiving end-of-the-year awards for academic achievement. And significantly more girls than boys were on the honor roll. What was going on?
After some checking, Holland soon discovered that he was not alone. Four of Belmont's neighboring districts in suburban Boston were experiencing similar disparities. Holland didn't know it at the time, but that same gap has been occurring across the nation. According to a number of studies and several researchers, boys are faring far worse than girls in school.

In fact, some experts say, mounting evidence suggests that boys are far less suited than girls to succeed in the academic environment. Those researchers point, for example, to boys' lower scores on the language arts sections of standardized tests, to their out-of-proportion placement in special education classes, and to the number of times boys are disciplined compared with girls.
Such experts say that educators have been slow to recognize that boys and girls often have different styles of learning and varying classroom needs. They say that boys perform best when they have frequent recess breaks and are able to roam around the classroom. And boys themselves say they are more likely, for instance, to enjoy argument and lively classroom debate, which often is discouraged, they say.


Boy-Friendly?

The school environment is not particularly boy-friendly, William S. Pollack, an assistant clinical professor in the department of psychology at Harvard University's medical school, concludes in his 1998 book, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood.

"Boys receive between five and 10 times more disciplinary actions in elementary and middle school than girls do," Pollack said in a recent interview. "And mostly we're told that's because they're more difficult. My answer is, it's because the environment is more difficult for them to attune to."

The attention currently being given to the problems boys face in school comes a decade after such research on girls claimed the spotlight. In 1992, for example, an influential report from the American Association of University Women, "The AAUW Report: How Schools Shortchange Girls," said, in essence, that schools were not girl-friendly.

According to the research cited in that report, boys received more attention from teachers than girls did, and nearly all textbooks were biased in favor of boys.
Research that soon followed the AAUW report cited girls' lower scores in mathematics and science as indicators of gender inequities in education.
While not discounting the hurdles girls have encountered in the classroom over the years, a number of experts point to girls' gains in math and science, and their outperformance of boys in English and reading, as critical to any gender comparisons in education.

The gender gap in the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, or MCAS, which tests proficiency in math and English language arts, has shrunk significantly, says Barney Brawer, a researcher at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., who recently broke down the scores from the state assessment by sex.
"The math gap is gone consistently," he says.

In 1998, the first year the MCAS test was given, 7.3 percent of 10th grade boys and 6.4 percent of sophomore girls taking the math test scored at the "advanced" level. By 2001, 18.8 percent of boys and 18.3 percent of girls who took the test scored at that level, shrinking the gap from nine-thenths of a percentage point to half a percentage point, according to Brawer's research.
For English language arts in 1998, 7.3 percent of female test-takers in 10th grade scored at the advanced level on the MCAS, while only 2.6 percent of male sophomore test-takers did so. Both boys and girls improved in subsequent years, but girls still significantly outperformed boys. Nearly 20 percent of girls taking the test scored at the advanced level in 2001, while 11.3 percent of boys reached that level.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is given periodically to a sampling of students nationwide, both female and male 12th graders showed gains in mathematics from 1990 to 2000, with girls slightly narrowing the gap with boys.

In 1990, the average score for 12th grade girls on the NAEP math test was 291, compared with 297 for 12th grade boys. In 2000, girls in that grade posted an average score of 299, while boys scored 303.

But girls enjoy a decided—and growing—edge in reading, scores from the national assessment suggest. On the 1992 NAEP reading test, 12th grade boys scored, on average, 10 points lower than girls did. And in 1998, the most recent year for which scores are available, boys scored 15 points below girls
Internationally, researchers see similar patterns. According to the Program for International Student Assessment, a 32-nation study of educational achievement that released findings last month, girls scored significantly higher than boys in reading in each country included in the study. With the exception of Iceland, New Zealand, and Russia, boys scored higher in math than girls did, though that gap was much smaller than the one in reading.


Girls vs. Boys

Gaps between boys' and girls' achievement in reading show up early. Girls and boys have similar skills overall when they enter kindergarten, but girls are slightly ahead in reading, according to the report "Entering Kindergarten: A Portrait of American Children When They Begin School."

The report, released a year ago by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, also says that more boys experience developmental delays, and that "girls are more pro-social and less prone to problem behaviors."

The NCES also recently reported in the Digest of Education Statistics in January, 2001 that girls are more able to stay on task, better able to pay attention, and more eager to learn when they enter kindergarten.

But a study released in the fall of 1999 by the University of Chicago says that by age 4 1/2, boys have a better understanding of spatial relationships than girls do. Spatial skills are important, for example, in interpreting graphs, maps, and X-rays, the report notes.


Big Boys Don't Cry

Boys at that young age are also more able to have close friendships and talk about those relationships than they are later in life, according to Judy Chu, a researcher at New York University who has worked with Carol Gilligan on boys' relationships and development.

Gilligan, the chairwoman of the gender studies program at Harvard University's graduate school of education, is most noted for her research that determined that early adolescence is a time of turmoil for girls. Now, Gilligan is theorizing that early childhood is a similarly tumultous time for boys.

Working from that theory, Chu conducted an intensive study of six boys, ages 4 and 5. She started visiting them when they were in preschool, and ended up observing them 39 times in the 1997-98 school year and the 1998-99 school year, when they were in kindergarten.

The boys were chosen because they attended prekindergarten at the Atrium School in Watertown, Mass., where Gilligan had done some of her previous research on girls. Chu says that, contrary to some of the recent literature in psychological journals that portrays young boys as emotionally deficient, she found that the boys she observed demonstrated an amazing ability to form meaningful relationships, and an ability to talk about their relationships.
"I was completely taken by surprise," she says. "I didn't think that 4-year-old boys could do that."

But as they grew older, their social skills, such as attentiveness, articulation, and responsiveness became harder to detect, she says.

That has a lot to do with what boys commonly learn from experience: Big boys don't cry. Boys feel "it is unsafe in the sense that people are not going to be receptive to their sensitivities," Chu says. "It is a wise decision to not reveal vulnerabilities."

The boys moved into a phase of showing "pretense" says Chu. Before she could talk to the boys about their relationships and feelings, she had to work through their saying things like "I'm the king of the world," says Chu. In preschool, the group of boys created a club that they called the "mean team." It was formed so that the boys could act out against and differentiate themselves from the girls, who were dubbed the "nice team," says Chu. One boy told Chu that he liked to play with the girls, but was worried that he would be kicked out of the club if the boy who was the leader of the mean team found out.

Chu says that try as they might, it is difficult for parents or teachers to shield boys from society's messages that certain behaviors are more acceptable for girls than for boys. "It is virtually impossible to take a boy out of that reality," she says.

And that preoccupation with pretense can make learning difficult. "It would make sense that boys would struggle in reading if they are not fully focused," she says.


No Girls

A group of middle school boys from minority, low-income backgrounds in Long Beach, Calif., seems to have overcome some of the messages they picked up from society. When the boys were educated in single-sex classrooms, their behavior changed in a way that surprised even the boys, says Kathryn Herr, an associate professor of education at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She spent the 1999-2000 school year studying 1,100 students—boys and girls—who were being educated in single-sex classrooms.

Being in classes without girls made the boys feel that they could take more risks and ask more questions, Herr says. And the girls, meanwhile, "felt somewhat more comfortable" without the boys around, she found.

"Both reported that the single-sex classes made for a safer environment," Herr says.

And some of the boys began helping each other succeed. Boys began to think that they were "in it together," Herr says. "They were startled by that," she adds.
The boys, she says, also reported that they "were supported and felt more known by their classmates and their teachers."


Ain't Misbehavin'

Nearly two-thirds of the students receiving special education services in the United States are boys. A study published last February in the journal Education and Treatment of Children says explanations for that fact abound.

The article, written by researchers from the Beach Center on Families and Disability at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and the ARC in Silver Spring, Md., identifies three especially prominent theories about why more boys than girls are placed in special education.

One is that boys are more susceptible to some genetic disorders and are predisposed to learning disabilities. Because girls mature more rapidly and have fewer birth defects, they may have a biological advantage over boys.
Another theory is that because boys are more likely to misbehave in class, they are more likely to get referred to special education programs.

And third, researchers in the field of gender equity have proposed that gender bias could be at the root of the discrepancy. They say that educators expect less from girls, and so they will more readily excuse low achievement from them. Educators set higher standards for boys, the reasoning goes, so if boys don't meet those standards, they are seen as needing special education.

To study some of the factors that contribute to placement in special education, the researchers reviewed the records of 695 students with mental retardation and specific learning disabilities from three midsize districts for three school years: 1992-93, 1993-94, and 1994-95. All of the students were at least 6 years old and were being admitted to special education for the first time.

The researchers gathered data about gender, reasons for referral, and the grades of the students when they were referred to special education, and drew on observations from classroom teachers about the students' behavior, coordination, and academic skills.

Of the students studied, only 2.5 percent of the girls had been referred to special education because of behavior problems. However, 20 percent of the boys had been referred for that reason. "Boys are more likely to be referred by regular education teachers, presumably because they are more disruptive and difficult to manage," the study says.

Because girls typically do not act up the same way boys do in classrooms, the researchers concluded that girls potentially are underrepresented in special education.


No Brainy Geeks Allowed

Back in Massachusetts, Superintendent Holland was determined to get to the bottom of the gender discrepencies the Belmont district faced. He set up a 10-member task force of parents, teachers, and administrators that met 11 times between November 1998 and May 1999.

The panel studied the makeup of various honors-level classes and extracurricular activities. As expected, more boys than girls were taking part in sports activities. And more girls than boys participated in academically oriented activities, such as the debate club and student government.

In the 1997-98 school year, boys made up only one-third of the students in the Advanced Placement English courses. The AP math classes were evenly divided between boys and girls. And the AP science courses were 55 percent male and 45 percent female.

The panel also wrote a questionnaire and surveyed small groups of parents, students, and teachers at Belmont High School, located in an upper-middle-class community northwest of Boston.

Doug Weinstock, a retired principal who served as the panel's chairman, said parents reported that their boys needed more support and needed to be encouraged to take more difficult academic courses.

Some faculty members from the high school and the district's Chenery Middle School were concerned that the task force's investigation would undermine the work that already had been done to benefit girls and ensure they got their fair share academically.

"Our task force did not see this as an either-or situation," says Weinstock, who served as an elementary school principal before retiring recently from the 3,700-student Belmont district. "We wanted to see what would be beneficial to all students."

Holland himself discussed the disparities between the boys' and girls' achievement levels with groups of sophomores and seniors at Belmont High. Members of the task force met separately with a group of senior boys and a group of senior girls.

In a report later released by the task force, some girls cited "peer culture and a lack of acceptance [among boys and girls] of the one-dimensional 'brainy' boy." Boys said that even in elementary school, they perceived that it was not acceptable to be a "geek" interested in schoolwork. And several boys reported that teachers appeared to have " 'given up' on them," and needed to have higher expectations for boys.

As a result of the task force's work, the district has become much more aware of boys' academic-achievement levels, Holland says. But change has been slow in coming, he says. District officials have tried to encourage middle school teachers to steer boys into harder classes for high school. But it will take several years to see results, the superintendent says.

Some high-achieving seniors currently attending Belmont High School have their own thoughts about why girls seem to be doing better than boys.
Greg Michnikov, 17, says that part of the problem could be that there are more female teachers than male teachers. "Females get along better with females than males do," he says.

NCES statistics show that three-quarters of the K-12 teachers in the United States are women.

"Females are more people pleasers," says Zdenka Sturm, a 17-year-old student at Belmont. "The teacher is a person, so when the girls please the teacher, the teacher rewards them with good grades," she says.

"Guys are more likely to say things, even if they are not sure that what they are saying is valid," adds Eden Lin, a 17-year-old boy. "Guys have a more confrontational approach to doing things than girls," he says.

But it's more than just getting along, says Brian Caliando, 17. Teachers discourage argument, which boys thrive on, he says.

"If someone poses an argument that coincides with the teacher's, he or she will let the argument go," Caliando says. "Then when you bring up a more radical idea, the teacher will come at you, so it's just a little more discouraging."
Lin says that to raise boys' achievement levels, schools should allow them to be more aggressive in the way they approach learning. "If we assume that guys tend to be more hands-on, and I think that is true, if you translate that tendency toward aggressiveness into the academic realm," he says, "I think it would be riding the natural impulses of males to learn that way."