Jennie&Tim on 31/5/2008 at 13:14

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I don't think you read it right, Jetslemming, what the article says is that boys are *not* better at math in a more equal society, girls are just as good. However, girls also pull even further ahead in reading, making them overall way ahead of the boys. This is troubling, because somewhere boys are getting shortchanged.

This test was given to fifteen year olds, that's getting fairly grown up as far as education goes, particularly since in many of the countries listed I'd bet that few kids make it through high school; heck real graduation rates in most of the US are only about 70%, which means that many of our kids may quit learning around fifteen too. It really doesn't leave a lot of time for the boys to be catching up after learning more discipline. There is research showing that the higher the proportion of girls in the classroom, the more learning takes place for both the boys and girls.

Maybe, since boys like to move, teaching literature through plays even in elementary school would be a good move? Then they can start to learn about plot and characterization. Particularly if they could do Indiana Jones types of stories with lots of action and adventure. I think plays could translate well into the skills needed to read well.

I don't think we should segregate boys and girls, as simple a solution as that sounds; because I think there are too many outliers in both groups who need the type of styles stereotypical of the other gender. (My own daughter is wild in the classroom, she's very intelligent and not a rule-follower, she sees no reason why she shouldn't entertain herself by crawling under desks or rocking back and forth on the floor if she's bored. Fine for kindergartners, not so fine for a second-grader. She needs constand supervision and sitting on, much like many boys.) Maybe an evaluation of learning characteristics of the individual child? Or do children benefit from a diversity of approaches, seeing that other styles of learning work well for other people?

I also wonder if the high proportion of women as teachers is bad for the boys. There are very few men teaching in elementary school, and maybe the boys need some male role models.

mopgoblin on 1/6/2008 at 00:06

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I'm not sure I'd trust their measure of equality. It wasn't described in much detail, and it seemed to focus on society rather than on education. There's obviously going to be some correlation there, as unequal societies will have gendered cultural (and sometimes legal) barriers to education. However, we can't be sure that cultural inequalities always indicate similar inequalities in education; in fact, it could be argued that inequalities in education are a major factor behind other types of inequalities (e.g. some of the inequalities in employment might be due to a lack of women studying the relevant subjects in the past), and thus it is possible that a culture that favours men* in general has an education system that favours men to a lesser degree, that is equal, or that favours women. At least in recent years, we've suspected that the inequality in maths results was due to a combination of inequality in the education system and effects of artificial gender roles; we should now suspect the same thing regarding the inequality in reading results. As you mentioned, the lack of male role models in schools is one potential aspect of inequality.

That brings me to the other problem with this measure - it's not clear whether it allows for values <em>greater</em> than 1, or what they might mean. Obviously they'd suggest a society that favours women, but it's not clear whether the opposite of 0.5 should be 1.5, or 2, or something else again. Furthermore, a value of 1 could potentially be either perfect equality, or some "balance" of inequalities. However, if the measure - or the survey used to collect the data - cannot produce values greater than 1, then it cannot properly account for a society that favours women, and will overstate inequality in other societies (data that generally increases the final value will be given no weight if the value without that data would be 1, and thus the weight of that data will also be understated if the value is close to 1).


I reckon that's a good idea, but you have to be careful with plays - they tend to have a handful of lead roles, so it's easy to end up with a relatively small proportion of the class getting most of the benefit. That leads into another issue - it's often assumed that boys are going to be rowdy and troublesome, but I reckon those are just a minority (or at least a small enough majority that the rest aren't really "outliers") that gets taken as the default, and that's because they make the most noise.


Yeah, people like to think segregation is the answer, because it's easy, and it might balance out the results somewhat. There are too many problems, though - not only are there "outliers" who don't benefit from the gender-assigned learning styles, but it reinforces the idea that there are only two sexes and two genders. It promotes an idealised conservative view of humanity, in which all females are feminine, all males are masculine, and anyone who doesn't fit neatly into this picture is either abnormal, not worthy of consideration, or doesn't even exist. I'd even challenge the notion that there's a "best" learning style for an individual, never mind a gender; at university, I've had better results in maths and gender studies (which seem to have reasonably strong stereotypical masculine/feminine learning styles respectively) than with subjects that fall in between (computer science, political science).


*I need to figure out a better way of expressing this. I suspect saying that something "favours men" or "favours women" sends the wrong impression, suggesting that the problem is that one gender gets more than they deserve, rather than that the other gets less than they deserve, and thus encourages resentment rather than cooperation.

AR Master on 1/6/2008 at 00:12

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Girls and numbers go together like oil and water. Ever see a woman try to budget? Her face gets all screwed up like a dog trying to comprehend a doorknob. There may be a faint flicker of understanding in her bovine doe eyes of what needs to be done, but neither the means to do it nor the ability to comprehend it.

Guys dealing in words n' shit is roughly the same. You can add fresh water to salt but you still can't drink it.

The easiest way, then, to keep chicks out of your clubhouse is to put a number lock on the front door

Tocky on 1/6/2008 at 03:26

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In spite of my earlier flippance I don't see enough difference geneticly to warrant concern. Social pressures within youngsters hierarchy are backwards as to the importance placed on sports over intellectual pursuits however. It's not that sports are unimportant but they aren't exactly going to advance civilization. It would be nice for adults to realize that as well.

And I am worried about a lack of stress placed on reading. When I was young there was the weekly reader, a newspaper full of the events of the day being discussed and explained. There were field trips to the library. I still remember that goofy song, "be all you can be read read read". We had the book program where you picked from a sheet and placed an order bi-monthly. It was exciting to get your own paperbacks roughly winnowed for your reading level. Some of that has fallen by the wayside. Today there are so many amusements to pick from for kids.

I'm sure that in between prayer in schools and scoring touchdowns there are still teachers imparting a love for the written word though. Not long back I was at the library and chanced to see a gagle of rapt little smiling faces being read to. Always it comes down to individual teachers. And too we should realize we are all teachers in our way.

Tocky on 2/6/2008 at 01:29

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Sure I laugh but my anus weeps, "Oh why did I take your class?" Perhaps it only sounds like a question. Or words. Smelly words.