Department for Education and Skills, 2007. (134 pages)
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/genderandachievement/pdf/7038_DfES_Gender_Ed.pdf?version=1
This topic paper draws together a range of evidence on gender and education.
It summarises current statistics on the participation and attainment of boys and girls from the Reception Year to the Sixth Form, placing the findings in an historical context where this is possible. Performance data from international research complement the historical data and strengthen the conclusions on overall trends. Subject choice and attainment are the main foci of the paper but gender differences in areas such as special educational needs, school
exclusions, attendance and bullying are also covered.
A large number of research papers have been written on the gender gap in attainment and this topic paper refers to a selection of these. We ask why there are differences in boys’ and girls’ participation and achievement and examine what strategies are effective in tackling boys’ lower attainment levels.
The paper focuses primarily on gender differences of school-aged pupils. In order to understand gender differences for this age group, it is important to draw on the literature on early childhood, biological and cognitive differences. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine this in any detail. Equally what happens at school then determines higher education and career choices but this is not covered here.
An important objective of this paper is to put the gender debate in context by examining the extent of the gender gap and discussing the role of gender in education alongside the role of other pupil characteristics, particularly social class and ethnicity. In addition, the focus is not solely on the concepts of the “gender gap” and “boys’ underachievement” but also acknowledges that, on the one hand, many boys are high attainers and, on the other, that many girls face significant challenges.
Conference puts spotlight on boys' education
1233 ABC Newcastle, July 4, 2007
University academics from across the world have gathered in Newcastle for a two-day conference aimed at improving educational outcomes for boys.
The Working with Boys, Building Fine Men conference starts today, and will discuss a range of initiatives, including mentoring programs.
Guest speaker John Andriunas says he will highlight the success of his program which tries to get fathers more involved in their sons' schooling.
"Mums have been the care givers throughout the history of our children and they look after the kids right from birth right through preschool and school," he said.
"We don't want to take anything away from the mothers, but we have found that the educational outcomes, social outcomes for children if their fathers are involved are a lot higher."
University academics from across the world have gathered in Newcastle for a two-day conference aimed at improving educational outcomes for boys.
The Working with Boys, Building Fine Men conference starts today, and will discuss a range of initiatives, including mentoring programs.
Guest speaker John Andriunas says he will highlight the success of his program which tries to get fathers more involved in their sons' schooling.
"Mums have been the care givers throughout the history of our children and they look after the kids right from birth right through preschool and school," he said.
"We don't want to take anything away from the mothers, but we have found that the educational outcomes, social outcomes for children if their fathers are involved are a lot higher."
The New Gender Gap
Business Week, MAY 26, 2003
From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex.
Lawrence High is the usual fortress of manila-brick blandness and boxy 1960s architecture. At lunch, the metalheads saunter out to the smokers' park, while the AP types get pizzas at Marinara's, where they talk about -- what else? -- other people. The hallways are filled with lip-glossed divas in designer clothes and packs of girls in midriff-baring track tops. The guys run the gamut, too: skate punks, rich boys in Armani, and saggy-panted crews with their Eminem swaggers. In other words, they look pretty much as you'd expect...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_21/b3834001_mz001.htm
From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex.
Lawrence High is the usual fortress of manila-brick blandness and boxy 1960s architecture. At lunch, the metalheads saunter out to the smokers' park, while the AP types get pizzas at Marinara's, where they talk about -- what else? -- other people. The hallways are filled with lip-glossed divas in designer clothes and packs of girls in midriff-baring track tops. The guys run the gamut, too: skate punks, rich boys in Armani, and saggy-panted crews with their Eminem swaggers. In other words, they look pretty much as you'd expect...
But when the leaders of the Class of 2003 assemble in the Long Island high school's fluorescent-lit meeting rooms, most of these boys are nowhere to be seen. The senior class president? A girl. The vice-president? Girl. Head of student government? Girl. Captain of the math team, chief of the yearbook, and editor of the newspaper? Girls...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_21/b3834001_mz001.htm
Education bias favours females
Jamaica Gleaner, Wednesday July 4, 2007
Failing Education (IV) - Education bias favours females
Peter Espeut (Peter Espeut is a sociologist and executive director of an environment and development NGO)
Jamaica's education system favours females; the systematic bias against men pushes them down and elevates women. Feminists are not comfortable with this thesis, for their instincts demand that in every sphere they are oppressed. But we have to be guided by facts: our education system is designed to fail the Jamaican male.
The first naked fact is that there are more high school places for girls than for boys, therefore more girls will pass the GSAT than boys. Check it out:there are seven high schools for boys only, while there are 14 high schools for girls only - twice as many! The average boys' high school is smaller than the average girls' school and co-educational high schools admit many more girls than boys, sometimes two-thirds girls to one-third boys. So, more Jamaican girls will get to high school than boys.
Men at the bottom of the ladder
So women will predominate at our universities, and men generally will become marginalised. Family life will be affected; women will complain of a shortage of marriageable men; and they will be right! There will be more men at the bottom of the economic ladder than women. And more men involved in crime.
This is not an accident; our educational policies after slavery were designed to protect plantation labour supply, which is why sugar areas like Trelawny, St. Thomas and Vere, and banana areas like St. Mary had no high school admitting boys until relatively recently. If too many boys go to high school, who would cut cane or weed bananas? So it is not so much that the system favours girls as it disadvantages boys.
The two political parties will be quick to say that they did not create this imbalance, partially true since none of the single-sex schools were established by government; it is mostly churches who are to blame; e.g. the Roman Catholic Church today has only one boys' high school but has all of five high schools for girls only! The parties have had all of 45 years to redress the gender imbalance, and they have not!
The gender bias is even more profound! In primary schools boys are often put to sit at the back; the students in front get more attention from the (usually female) teacher. The GSAT takes place at age eleven, when girls are psychologically more developed that boys. If it was a straight competition for high school places based on performance, girls have a big (and unfair) advantage over boys. And in co-educational schools, boys and girls of the same age are put in the same class, which means that girls will always do better, which has negative psychological impact on boys.
In my opinion, for best results, high schools should all be single sex! And then those of each gender can progress at their optimal pace.
So much is wrong with Jamaica's education system, and yet the best the two parties can do in this election campaign is make promises that the low quality education they are offering will be free.
Why don't they promise that they will put in place a system that can teach our children to read properly? Why don't they promise they will create a system where all Jamaican schoolchildren will get a good secondary education up to Grade 11?
Political baptism
Both JLP and PNP have rebaptised 'new secondary schools' into 'high schools', and there is great pretence that the new 'high schools' are of equal standard to 'traditional' high schools. The apartheid continues!
Why don't the parties promise that all secondary schools will be of equal standard? Why don't they promise gender equality? Why don't they promise that high schools will be neighbourhood-based, so students don't have to travel 30-40 miles per day just to get to a 'good' high school? All they should have to do is go down the street! Both parties are to blame for our failing education system, and it doesn't look like it will get better anytime soon.
Failing Education (IV) - Education bias favours females
Peter Espeut (Peter Espeut is a sociologist and executive director of an environment and development NGO)
Jamaica's education system favours females; the systematic bias against men pushes them down and elevates women. Feminists are not comfortable with this thesis, for their instincts demand that in every sphere they are oppressed. But we have to be guided by facts: our education system is designed to fail the Jamaican male.
The first naked fact is that there are more high school places for girls than for boys, therefore more girls will pass the GSAT than boys. Check it out:there are seven high schools for boys only, while there are 14 high schools for girls only - twice as many! The average boys' high school is smaller than the average girls' school and co-educational high schools admit many more girls than boys, sometimes two-thirds girls to one-third boys. So, more Jamaican girls will get to high school than boys.
Men at the bottom of the ladder
So women will predominate at our universities, and men generally will become marginalised. Family life will be affected; women will complain of a shortage of marriageable men; and they will be right! There will be more men at the bottom of the economic ladder than women. And more men involved in crime.
This is not an accident; our educational policies after slavery were designed to protect plantation labour supply, which is why sugar areas like Trelawny, St. Thomas and Vere, and banana areas like St. Mary had no high school admitting boys until relatively recently. If too many boys go to high school, who would cut cane or weed bananas? So it is not so much that the system favours girls as it disadvantages boys.
The two political parties will be quick to say that they did not create this imbalance, partially true since none of the single-sex schools were established by government; it is mostly churches who are to blame; e.g. the Roman Catholic Church today has only one boys' high school but has all of five high schools for girls only! The parties have had all of 45 years to redress the gender imbalance, and they have not!
The gender bias is even more profound! In primary schools boys are often put to sit at the back; the students in front get more attention from the (usually female) teacher. The GSAT takes place at age eleven, when girls are psychologically more developed that boys. If it was a straight competition for high school places based on performance, girls have a big (and unfair) advantage over boys. And in co-educational schools, boys and girls of the same age are put in the same class, which means that girls will always do better, which has negative psychological impact on boys.
In my opinion, for best results, high schools should all be single sex! And then those of each gender can progress at their optimal pace.
So much is wrong with Jamaica's education system, and yet the best the two parties can do in this election campaign is make promises that the low quality education they are offering will be free.
Why don't they promise that they will put in place a system that can teach our children to read properly? Why don't they promise they will create a system where all Jamaican schoolchildren will get a good secondary education up to Grade 11?
Political baptism
Both JLP and PNP have rebaptised 'new secondary schools' into 'high schools', and there is great pretence that the new 'high schools' are of equal standard to 'traditional' high schools. The apartheid continues!
Why don't the parties promise that all secondary schools will be of equal standard? Why don't they promise gender equality? Why don't they promise that high schools will be neighbourhood-based, so students don't have to travel 30-40 miles per day just to get to a 'good' high school? All they should have to do is go down the street! Both parties are to blame for our failing education system, and it doesn't look like it will get better anytime soon.
Raising Boys' Achievement
Synopsis
In this programme two schools attempt to break through the range of barriers to boys' learning.
Matthew Arnold School, a mixed comprehensive in Surrey, is trying a step-by-step change methodology to test strategies that can be practically introduced.
St Aloysius RC College in north London is working with its local football club, Arsenal, to develop achievement raising strategies.
It appears that there are no quick fixes to raising boys' achievement, and this programme acknowledges the wider social and cultural barriers that cannot be overcome by schooling alone.
VIDEO
In this programme two schools attempt to break through the range of barriers to boys' learning.
Matthew Arnold School, a mixed comprehensive in Surrey, is trying a step-by-step change methodology to test strategies that can be practically introduced.
St Aloysius RC College in north London is working with its local football club, Arsenal, to develop achievement raising strategies.
It appears that there are no quick fixes to raising boys' achievement, and this programme acknowledges the wider social and cultural barriers that cannot be overcome by schooling alone.
VIDEO
'Dangerous Book for Boys'
The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2007
First, there was the question of the title: "The Dangerous Book for Boys." HarperCollins Publishers' Chief Executive Jane Friedman just didn't understand what it meant. Sure, the book had been a hit in England and Australia, but that didn't mean it would work in the U.S.
But the sales staff urged her to stick with it, and in just two weeks, "Dangerous" has become the breakout hit of the season. The News Corp. unit initially ordered up 91,000 copies. There are now 405,000 copies in print. One senior HarperCollins executive, extrapolating from overseas sales and population data, projects that "Dangerous," which lists for $24.95, could sell as many as four million in the U.S.
The book, by English brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, purports to aim itself at a particularly inscrutable and un-book-friendly audience: boys around the age of 10. It tries to answer the question: What do boys need to know?
So here are instructions on how to skip stones, fold a paper hat, make a battery, and hunt and cook a rabbit. It includes a description of the Battle of Thermopylae, but also how to play Texas Hold 'Em poker, and use the phrases "Carpe diem" and "Curriculum vitae."
The unapologetic message is that boys need a certain amount of danger and risk in their lives, and that there are certain lessons that need to be passed down from father to son, man to man. The implication is that in contemporary society basic rules of maleness aren't being handed off as they used to be.
The book aims to correct that. It does so with a pretelevision, prevideogame sensibility, and also by embracing a view of gender that has been unfashionable in recent decades: that frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails are more than lines in a nursery rhyme, and that boys are by nature hard-wired differently than girls.
But "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is also aimed at boomer dads, who nostalgically yearn for a lost boyhood of fixing lawn mowers and catching snakes with their fathers -- even if that didn't really happen as often as they think it did.
Insects, juggling are among topics in 'The Dangerous Book for Boys.'
The gender-exclusive nature of "Dangerous" bothers some women. In a posting on the livejournal.com Web site, one woman, addressing the book and boys in general, wrote: "Here's a tip, kiddies: maybe the girls want to have the same kind of fun you do, instead of sitting around the house and learning how to be a servant." (Matthew Benjamin, a senior editor at the Collins imprint, which published the book, says, "There hasn't been any organized protest.")
On the back of the book's cover -- retro red cloth with oversized gold lettering -- the come-on is "Recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days." Inside are odd-sized color illustrations of fish, trilobites, and an example of marbled paper. Some have compared it to Daniel Carter Beard's "The American Boy's Handy Book," originally published in 1882.
So is this a book that Dad brings home and that then gathers dust in Junior's room, forgotten behind the iPods and laptops?
Paul Bogaards, an executive for rival publisher Bertelsmann AG's Alfred A. Knopf, says he took a copy home to his eight-year-old son, Michael, whom he describes as "junked up on Nick, Disney and Club Penguin," a Web site. Mr. Bogaards says Michael took to it immediately, demanding that his dad test paper airplanes into the night, even missing "American Idol." He adds: "That's the good news. The bad news is that he now expects me to build him a treehouse." He concludes: "Million-copy-plus seller easy, with the shelf life of Hormel Spam."
"We initially thought that men nostalgic for their boyhoods would be the buyers, but people are also buying it for 12-year-old boys," says Mr. Benjamin. "This book teaches them its OK to play and explore."
Concerned that the book would seem too British, Collins asked the authors to adapt parts of it for U.S. readers. A section about royalty was replaced by the 50 states, American mountains and the Declaration of Independence. Baseball's most valuable players and "How to Play Stickball" supplants the chapter on cricket. But rugby made the cut: it was tough, dangerous and better-known in the U.S. A "Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary" superseded Britain's patron saints.
The book's cover emphasizes the text's retro feel.
Unchanged for the U.S. market were the two pages on the subject of girls. The first bit of advice: "It is important to listen."
"Dangerous" ranks No. 5 in sales on Amazon.com Inc.'s Web site, which provides an adjacent diagram explaining how to tie some knots. A video, provided by the publisher, shows how a father and son can use the book outdoors, including a scene where Dad gives his son's gravity-powered go-cart a push downhill.
Barnes & Noble Inc., the country's largest book retailer, likes the title so much that it has already stacked it on its Father's Day table and says it will give the book its own additional table later this month. Mike Ferrari, a director of merchandising, says the retailer has classified "Dangerous" as a reference book, and is stocking it in the front of the store.
Mr. Ferrari notes that some reference titles from the United Kingdom have done particularly well in the U.S., including Lynne Truss's "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," published by Pearson PLC's Gotham imprint in 2004. Today there are nearly 1.6 million hardcover and paperback copies in print.
HarperCollins says it doesn't have any immediate plans to publish a girl's version. HarperCollins's Ms. Friedman, who has two sons and two stepsons, explains: "Boys are very different."
Write to Jeffrey A.Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
First, there was the question of the title: "The Dangerous Book for Boys." HarperCollins Publishers' Chief Executive Jane Friedman just didn't understand what it meant. Sure, the book had been a hit in England and Australia, but that didn't mean it would work in the U.S.
But the sales staff urged her to stick with it, and in just two weeks, "Dangerous" has become the breakout hit of the season. The News Corp. unit initially ordered up 91,000 copies. There are now 405,000 copies in print. One senior HarperCollins executive, extrapolating from overseas sales and population data, projects that "Dangerous," which lists for $24.95, could sell as many as four million in the U.S.
The book, by English brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, purports to aim itself at a particularly inscrutable and un-book-friendly audience: boys around the age of 10. It tries to answer the question: What do boys need to know?
So here are instructions on how to skip stones, fold a paper hat, make a battery, and hunt and cook a rabbit. It includes a description of the Battle of Thermopylae, but also how to play Texas Hold 'Em poker, and use the phrases "Carpe diem" and "Curriculum vitae."
The unapologetic message is that boys need a certain amount of danger and risk in their lives, and that there are certain lessons that need to be passed down from father to son, man to man. The implication is that in contemporary society basic rules of maleness aren't being handed off as they used to be.
The book aims to correct that. It does so with a pretelevision, prevideogame sensibility, and also by embracing a view of gender that has been unfashionable in recent decades: that frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails are more than lines in a nursery rhyme, and that boys are by nature hard-wired differently than girls.
But "The Dangerous Book for Boys" is also aimed at boomer dads, who nostalgically yearn for a lost boyhood of fixing lawn mowers and catching snakes with their fathers -- even if that didn't really happen as often as they think it did.
Insects, juggling are among topics in 'The Dangerous Book for Boys.'
The gender-exclusive nature of "Dangerous" bothers some women. In a posting on the livejournal.com Web site, one woman, addressing the book and boys in general, wrote: "Here's a tip, kiddies: maybe the girls want to have the same kind of fun you do, instead of sitting around the house and learning how to be a servant." (Matthew Benjamin, a senior editor at the Collins imprint, which published the book, says, "There hasn't been any organized protest.")
On the back of the book's cover -- retro red cloth with oversized gold lettering -- the come-on is "Recapture Sunday afternoons and long summer days." Inside are odd-sized color illustrations of fish, trilobites, and an example of marbled paper. Some have compared it to Daniel Carter Beard's "The American Boy's Handy Book," originally published in 1882.
So is this a book that Dad brings home and that then gathers dust in Junior's room, forgotten behind the iPods and laptops?
Paul Bogaards, an executive for rival publisher Bertelsmann AG's Alfred A. Knopf, says he took a copy home to his eight-year-old son, Michael, whom he describes as "junked up on Nick, Disney and Club Penguin," a Web site. Mr. Bogaards says Michael took to it immediately, demanding that his dad test paper airplanes into the night, even missing "American Idol." He adds: "That's the good news. The bad news is that he now expects me to build him a treehouse." He concludes: "Million-copy-plus seller easy, with the shelf life of Hormel Spam."
"We initially thought that men nostalgic for their boyhoods would be the buyers, but people are also buying it for 12-year-old boys," says Mr. Benjamin. "This book teaches them its OK to play and explore."
Concerned that the book would seem too British, Collins asked the authors to adapt parts of it for U.S. readers. A section about royalty was replaced by the 50 states, American mountains and the Declaration of Independence. Baseball's most valuable players and "How to Play Stickball" supplants the chapter on cricket. But rugby made the cut: it was tough, dangerous and better-known in the U.S. A "Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary" superseded Britain's patron saints.
The book's cover emphasizes the text's retro feel.
Unchanged for the U.S. market were the two pages on the subject of girls. The first bit of advice: "It is important to listen."
"Dangerous" ranks No. 5 in sales on Amazon.com Inc.'s Web site, which provides an adjacent diagram explaining how to tie some knots. A video, provided by the publisher, shows how a father and son can use the book outdoors, including a scene where Dad gives his son's gravity-powered go-cart a push downhill.
Barnes & Noble Inc., the country's largest book retailer, likes the title so much that it has already stacked it on its Father's Day table and says it will give the book its own additional table later this month. Mike Ferrari, a director of merchandising, says the retailer has classified "Dangerous" as a reference book, and is stocking it in the front of the store.
Mr. Ferrari notes that some reference titles from the United Kingdom have done particularly well in the U.S., including Lynne Truss's "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," published by Pearson PLC's Gotham imprint in 2004. Today there are nearly 1.6 million hardcover and paperback copies in print.
HarperCollins says it doesn't have any immediate plans to publish a girl's version. HarperCollins's Ms. Friedman, who has two sons and two stepsons, explains: "Boys are very different."
Write to Jeffrey A.Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
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