Belief boys should be strong allows harsh treatment; less support. Creates high average stress; layers remain taking away mental energy for academics; they must work harder receive mental reward. Creates lower social vocabulary; creates lags girls given daily. Treatment hurts reading; activity not genetic; high muscle tension hurts handwriting/reading require high vocabulary low stress. False genetic models create hopelessness. Tougher, boys given love honor only on condition of achievement to give their lives in war for love honor. Males not achieving given ridicule discipline make them try harder. Support is not given for fear of coddling and false belief in genetics. Boys failing turn attention to sports video games for love honor not received in school. The belief boys should be strong false belief in genetics create denial of harsh treatment creating low academics low esteem other problems. This is not about openness from boys but about society allowing aggressive treatment so boys feel wariness for adults who use aggressive treatment for any weakness, condoned by society. This problem is affecting all male children but lower the socioeconomic bracket and time more amplified.
Girl given support by adults; creates good outcome for girls. We receive love honor for being girls. This creates good things: lower average stress ease of learning: high social vocabulary/other skills from protection. Creates ease in writing/reading; creates bonanza today for girls.
This article is important because Asian-Americans have problems with education and it's not just education,it's also that they don't really have gender equality. People have the stereotype that Asian-American girls are better than men but it is not true, both are equality have the same skills. And this not fun because they really have the pressure of never be disappointed about themself.
I recommend the works of Michael Gurian to the author and the readers of this article. The Wonder of Boys and A Fine Young Man will give you great insights to male development. I respect the author for exploring the challenges of boys in school but I think she has climbed up the wrong tree. Comparisons are futile. Parents who have more than one child recognize this. You can never compare.
1
I think that this article is very shortsighted and caves to stereotypes. As someone who is part Asian I recognize that Asians as a whole do better in school but achieving perfect grades is certainly not the gold standard for living. As someone who is part Asian I stereotypically struggled in sports and creative outlets which would force me to come out of my shell of shyness. This was not fun. I would have gladly traded my grades for more courage and ability in these avenues. We need to be very careful when talking about racial groups and superficially putting some on a pedestals. Each group has their gifts and each group deserves to be recognized. Boys need their peer groups more than academic success. I recommend the author read Michael Gurian's work on this issue. A well rounded academic track record is far more important than achieving straight A's. And frankly in the end of life, one's ability to relate to people is most important so the emphasis on grades and academic success and comparing children is unproductive nor does it brings us closer to our higher aim as a society which is to insure happy children and emotionally fulfilled adults.
2
Men win at everything in life, let's face it the world or at least the US is and will forever be stacked against women in general. So I do not care at all about boys falling behind, this means fewer of them to compete with later in the workforce, and at least our daughters will have some kind of chance at real success if these boys are left behind.
1
@Cathy Smithson
And what about your sons?
@Cathy Smithson
I'm appalled by this comment. Millions of men gave their lives for this country so that you and I and our daughters could be free.
@Cathy Smithson
By your logic, women, more specifically girls, should get less hospital treatment because women live longer then men. Sounds absolutely disgusting and immoral doesn’t it?
Asian boys and Asian girls feel different pressures in adolescence. The article implies that it is "easier" for Asian girls. In my opinion it is actually harder for that group, borne out by statistics that says Asian girls have the highest suicide rate in adolescence. Girls as a group are much more conformist than boys. Asian girls have to be smart and get good grades due to parental pressure, yet still have to be "hot" and attractive to boys due to peer pressure, e.g. being asked to go to dances. While the two are not mutually exclusive, they often are per our pop culture.
Asian boys know they will never be the hot 6 ft tall hunky football players who get the hottest cheerleaders and they don't even try. But adolescence hits boys differently. Many boys, be they white or Asian, become much more laid back about school after hitting puberty. Getting the best grades is no longer their top priority. Perhaps it's due to attraction to girls, I'm not sure. I've seen this happening to lots of boys who were labeled "gifted" in elementary school, they become much more mellow in high school.
It's a lot harder to get boys to be interested in elite college, they just don't care. This includes highly gifted boys. They hate having to do ECs or volunteering. It's easier to get girls to do that. Boys assert their independence and masculinity through disobedience in high school. This is true of all races. But if the upbringing is good, they'll get pass that phase, enter college and do well.
4
@Listen
Actually it’s laid back more because they want to live life, not just chase girls. I speak as an Asian American boy. And I’m off-course I try hard I’m school and get all As, I prefer to live life because it’s depressing to be so school oriented and stressed
Adolescent young men experience a curious pressure to consider masculinity as something independent of intellect: many young women seeking "manly" men.
"No poets or artists please. I want a sailor man!" Olive Oyl
2
There is no mention of nutrition and sleep in this article and how it impacts performance in school. I would be interested in seeing academic performance mapped to nutrition and getting enough sleep. Females from a young age are put under pressure about staying slim and as a result maybe eating healthier than their male counterparts. Because males have a higher metabolism they are able to get away with eating more junk food in their younger years and although it may not impact their bodies, I'm guessing it does impact their academics.
Many Asian families still cook at home and cook more traditional foods which are better balanced and have more vegetables.
I think regardless of race or gender outside factors such as the school environment, the home environment, nutrition, sleep, and exercise have a huge impact on academic performance. There are examples of schools in poor neighborhoods when given organic food, meditation exercises and strong support from teachers completely turn around their performance.
We are trying to simplify this to a few factors when in reality it is many factors. My personal experience as a first generation female in the US is I worked incredibly hard at school because I did not want to live my mother's life. The motivations was so strong to get an education and get out of my parents household. Having economic freedom would mean the key to having complete freedom.
2
No need for the boys to bother to work. When they finally get into their careers they're paid more than their female counterparts and snaffle the best jobs. So why slog in school?
6
@MTB Untrue. Sex-based discrimination in the workplace is absolutely outlawed in pretty much every developed nation. If a man is making more, it’s because he worked harder and became qualified for that position. And if you’re really still trying to make this argument, why are 75% of homeless people men?
1
It's probably simplistic to say, but boys not doing as well in school as girls might also help explain the basic insecurity (and resulting misogyny) of men towards women, especially those who succeed in a large way - like becoming CEOs, becoming Senators, members of the House, running for president, etc.
To this day, these insecure men still hold onto their misogynistic demeaning treatment all women, but especially those who, deservedly, attain high positions that were, until recently, viewed as the exclusive domain of men who actually, it seems, never earned those positions in the first place.
7
Given girls academic advantage early on, why so few in engineering, math, and computer science? Boys have an innate advantage later on?
1
@Alice's Restaurant. I teach in an engineering school. There are few female faculty and while I am not distressed by it, I am more or less left on my own while my male colleagues collaborate and socialize and plan the department - they get together and never consider including me until they need to recruit students. The last female quit - the culture is not anti- female but it is exclusionary - My colleagues are nice guys but there is a threshold I think that must be met before women ( and girls) are included. Men are quite assertive even aggressive in fighting for their ideas - without tenure, no young faculty can argue their own views as vociferously- so a pattern becomes entrenched. I suspect that it is the same in high school. The smaller number of female STEM teachers cannot alter the culture to make our field welcoming and affirming enough for girls as well.
5
One possible factor not mentioned: Is it possible that there is a greater tendency among the vast majority of primary grade teachers (who are female) to pathologize normal (generally more rambunctious) male behavior? A second possible factor not mentioned: Is it possible that since most primary teachers are female, they serve as positive role models for girls? Partly by definition, partly due to the cultural influences cited, female primary grade teachers would be less likely to be taken by young boys as role models.
4
@Rich Pathologize strikes me as a bit of an overstatement. I agree with the rest of what you write though.
1
@Rich
You are climbing up a correct tree. Lack of role models in K-12 had hurt our sons. Read the work of Michael Gurian , specifically , A Fine Young Man to learn about the importance of male role models.
1
Is this really a problem? I mean, boys eventually grow into men who make 20% more than women doing the same job.
Same goes for Asian-Americans doing better academically than other ethnic groups. When the top level Asian-Americans apply to the Ivy+ colleges, they'll be judged to have inferior personalities, wiping out their over-achievements in extracurriculars and academics (per DOJ v Harvard lawsuit).
So why worry when entrenched societal forces eventually wipe out these achievement gaps anyway?
6
@Miss ABC
Try to pretend you are the mother of a young boy and that you care as much about him as you do about your young girl. Now, does it matter? Cynicism doesn't solve anything.
@Miss ABC That 20% figure is sort-of true for the population at large; but certainly not for the same job. For men and women with college degrees under 30, women make more than men except in tech and finance.
3
@Rich
Try to pretend you are the father of a very hardworking, high achieving Asian girl and that you care as much about her as you do about your young boy. Now, do you tell her that her dedication and talents will pay off or do you tell her that her white Hispanic boyfriend who she tutors regularly will likely end up at a better college and make more money than her? Cynicism or reality?
1
Much of this sounds like overgeneralization or exaggeration, but rather than focusing so much on peer pressure, maybe we should rethink the ways we have redesigned education that could be leading to boys doing worse. It has been documented that boys are more frequently punished these days and more often forced to take idiotic drugs such as Ritalin. On the other hand, what about the reduction in gym classes and sports teams? Fewer opportunities for boys to burn off their excess energy now. Have seen that with my own kids. In my day gym was a daily thing, as opposed to once or twice a week now. There was freshman, JV and varsity teams in most sports for boys. Now, I suppose with Title IX, it has become a zero sum game, in which girls often have a JV option, but not boys. My daughter plays HS sports now, but my son, whose only option was to try out for the varsity as a freshman, now has apparently given up. Those options were important to me 40 years ago ... I was able to play freshman baseball and even a bit of football, then JV tennis, before I worked my way to varsity. There were also options to play music earlier, and to learn languages ... maybe the budget ax has claimed them. Or the sad obsession with STEM. But this peer pressure thing strikes me as overblown ... I did sports, and graduated in the top 10%, and nobody gave me grief.
6
Academic success don't just stem from what privileges and opportunities you are given. It also stems from what restrictions and prohibitions you must learn to deal with.
If a boy gets the impression early on, that one simply doesn't have to study that hard in school to reach their future goals (social status, female attention), then most adolescents simply won't. There are plenty of more enjoyable distractors to pursue during one's youthful years.
But as an Asian male I learned early on that love is like bread -- man earns it by the sweat of his brow.
3
Funny. As a boy, I was taught it was good to do well in school. So what changed? I know that school approaches changed to be more inclusive for girls. That's a good thing. I also know that things like teaching phonics changed to whole language. Might it be that the system changed from an approach favouring boys to an approach favouring girls through the past 30 years? There are a whole range of other factors, which come into play. 40 years ago, when I was in high school, it was possible for boys to leave school in grade ten and get good paying jobs in mills and plants. Those jobs are no longer there and school retention and graduation rates are seen as key. Yet fewer schools offer vocational options that were offered in my day, options populated mainly by...you guessed it: boys. Perhaps the whole system needs reviewing and different approaches need to be tried?
7
The other possibility is that--in ways that we do not yet fully understand--boys and men are feeling in their gut what's wrong with the modern school and workplace. They are expressing a powerful aversion to the docility and impassiveness required to function in these environments.
It's an aversion for now, not a rebellion. Not yet.
3
There is a quote I've always held in mind. It comes from Robert Heinlein. All teachers, caregivers, and parents who act as role models to children, should inculcate it into themselves and, in so doing, provide the same outlook to those who look to them:
"“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
And along with this a human being should show love to all those in their lives. So them that being as well rounded as possible is the best tool you have available in life. Do this and you will have served your young charges well in helping them along the paths of their lives.
Just some thoughts worth about that much.
John~
American Net'Zen
4
So in other words America's sports-obsessed culture has the effect of keeping boys dumbed down. But masculine.
5
Of course boys can keep up with girls -- but often it helps to have an older sister or two to push and challenge them.
While my sisters and I were reading champions, our younger brother scored grade 1 reading level when he was in the 3rd grade. We asked our mother if he was retarded. In fact, I think that he was actually ignored, but then our very busy working mother put his sisters into action, and he came out fine.
My own son was far ahead of his classmates in all subjects (maybe because he has an ambitious older sister), and then got bullied for it by the other boys in his class.
8
It's the parents -- teachers are fighting against four big issues where parents are involved. First, anti-intellectual attitudes (folks who think you're better off as an athlete than a scholar). Second, non-support for teachers and administrators in a discipline situation (folks who say that their child is always an angel). Third, inadequate educational resources (keeping taxes low leads to large class sizes, low teacher pay and benefits, underinvestment in libraries, overinvestment in wasteful and ineffective standardized testing). Fourth, not enough emphasis on non-competitive-sports extra activities (such as theater, walking clubs, robotics clubs, and cooking clubs). All four issues have a disproportionately negative impact on the educational environment for boys.
5
Why not utilize social media to help academically focused boys connect with other boys in the same situation? I note that many boys are bullied for being ‘nerds’, and feel alone. What they need is a peer group who understands and cheers them on.
2
"Women perform better in school because they are diligent cooperative and ambitious."
Those attributes, those women, should be rewarded out in the world. These are the people who need to be cultivated for the best positions and championed for their ideals. Those men who are not as talented..... help women be even better leaders by serving them faithfully.
4
@seaperl
Got to keep pumping those generalizations out. Like the top 1% doesn’t have the same work ethic regardless of gender
I question the assertion that boys get lower grades than girls due to, among other factors, too much focus on sports. Many girls also participate in competitive sports programs with rigorous practice schedules and near year round league games and tournaments. While it is hard to find definitive statistics, a quick internet search suggests that although a higher percentage of boys participate in organized sports than girls, the difference is not large.
1
SOME sports are a good thing--in fact, "scholar-athletes" often do better academically, especially if they have coaches who prioritize studying. The problem is a culture that grossly overvalues sports in relation to academic activity. In the U.S., the entire school day is ruined, and kids starved of sleep, by starting too early so that there's more time for after-school athletics. Why aren't there more academic tournaments and awards--at least as many as for sports? The other great drain on boys' time is gaming, which should be treated by parents and schools as the toxic addiction it is.
7
Grades are a terrible proxy for academic achievement as they are highly subjective and thus subject to multiple layers of bias from gender to race to social class.
Perhaps boys, as a gender, are graded more harshly than girls because they are perceived as "tougher" with "more options" than girls? Perhaps boys are graded lower because teachers expect boys to have lower grades? Perhaps boys are graded lower because their behavior does not conform as well to "expectations" than girls. Perhaps boys have more commitments to extracurricular activities in high school (sports) than girls which lowers the time and energy available for academic work?
Too many potential variables for grades to be useful for measurement.
7
@OneView
The answer to grade difference and expectation from teachers on boys and girls is to separate boys from girls during their high school years. There is research to explain the difference between boys and girls in physical, behaviorial and intellectual development. Girls mature sooner at around 15 of age, boys mature much later till 20's. There are many benefits to divide students by age as well as gender. The environment will be less competitive for popularity, more cooperation and less showing off and tribalism by race, ethnicity and social class of rich and poor. Socialization amongst students in egalitarian way can be nurtured to make a more open society.
1
Education is not a zero-sum game, where if one person gains knowledge, some other person ends up without knowledge. Females have long been required to work together for the betterment of all, but males (American, anyway) seem to need to continuously compete, and unless someone loses, there is no winner.
10
It wasn't that long ago when the same points this article makes about boys were said about girls.
Title IX and a strong societal push changed all of that. Yet, ironically, society and Title IX have now oppressed our boys. Society now says boys are not as capable as girls academically. When the heck did that ever happen!
This article asserts the contrary yet its very existence shows that society now believes differently.
3
@Techgirl
Very well said. The fact that there are so few comments here exemplify the lack of interest in boys' plight.
Boys drop out of school more than girls, are kicked out more, get fed Ritalin more, go to jail more and go on to get only 40% of college degrees. They commit suicide 4 TIMES as much as girls, a ratio that continues through adulthood.
I'd guess those would all be widely known facts if they applied to girls instead of boys.
Girls need our help and deserve it. A generation ago, we began to realize it, and we paid attention to the needs of girls in our schools. It was obviously the right thing to do. And it worked!
Now, boys need our help. They deserve it too.
Will they get it?
12
@Techgirl
Unfortunately everyone has skirted around the real culprit and that is peer pressure. Boys have always been asked to the so-called masculine definition . Adolescent boys are more subject to conform . Girls have almost learned that popularity which is so important to teens they now realize that outside factors play an important part and they don't have to confirm tostereotypes. Physicality plays a much more important role in popularity . Bullying happens to young boys also but they are not encouraged to speak out because that is not masculine so reporting this is not part of the role they play. Young men have to solve their problems in the only way they are encouraged. We all know that leads mainly to force. Parents have to encourage their sons to take pride in accomplishments that use more than the physical . We see the adoration of our athletes, which is not bad, but the scholarship athletepis not applauded. All are important, particularly in the black community who should encourage their sons that mental achievement is just as important and Katerina on will lead to a better more important life.
@Jojojo Thank God people are making sense here.
"They get the message that doing well in school is not masculine, social scientists say. Even in peer groups that prize good grades, it’s considered uncool to seem to try hard to earn them."
This not only is true now, but was true even in my generation, who were primary and middle school students way back in the late 1930s and 1940s. As one who loved to learn, I can remember feeling that I wish that there were no report cards or announced grades to reveal that character flaw others, and that women teachers -- in their innocence -- would cease praising my performance publicly. If they only understood the negative social consequences that I might thereafter be forced to suffer. I literallly would act up in class to be scolded or purnished, purposely to improve my image on the playground. Fortunately pupils were divided according to academic interest and abiity at secondary school level, and all that nonsense ceased to matter.
5
I also believe there is low expectation from teachers towards girls once they enter high school. When my daughter first started high school, she selected chemistry as her course work. She was rejected without any specific reason. I called the school Principal to protest. I was told my daughter did not have the grades to study chemistry. I further protested that studetns shold have a chance to study science as basic education requirement. (I went to school in Hong Kong, and science courses as Physics, Chemistry and Math - Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry are included in the curriculum before one graduates.). The Principal refused, repeating that my daughter may not have the apptitude. Later, My daughter graduated from UC-Berkeley in Mecantical Engineering. I believe the Principal was biased against my daughter because she is a girl and an Asian. My daughter is doing well working in a mostly male profession. That is the best proof that girls can be as good as boys in hard science.
19
I am confused here by all the comments about how school now favors or advantages girls, and boys are stifled and bored by enforced desk sitting all day.
What was school like in the old, and even not so old days? You sat at a desk, boy or girl, from 9-3, usually with women teachers, and there was MUCH more rote learning. Memorizing multiplication tables, how to diagram a sentence to understand, among other things, the difference between adjectives and adverbs(does anyone still do this?), how to write a letter and so on. All for a basis on which to build. Did I enjoy this? No. Was I bored? You bet. And no more or less than my barely one year older brother. Kids did run around more physically after school, not attached to video games, so steam did have an outlet.
I see here a lot of excuse making for boys. Girls were rendered compliant by societal expectations, now less so, but if you think they weren't bored and were happy with the routine, go visit an all girls school and see them act out.
As far as girls only being attracted to macho guys, eschewing nerds, how come(male) classical musicians and singers have hordes of female followers?
8
@Sza-Sza
There are far more female teachers in education now, particularly at the elementary level, where foundations are established. No role models? Who knows.
1
@Sza-Sza Any incidence where half the population is falling behind needs to be addressed and fixed. It was unacceptable when the girls were behind and is simply unacceptable now. No matter the cause, something like this needs to be fixed.
1
The Asians are the only ones who take education seriously. Americans who have been here for generations spend their time whining about how the schools are failing when it is actually the American families who are failing. Simply - it's not the fault of the education system. It's the parents.
21
Our boys are in trouble.
They drop out of school more than girls, are kicked out more, get fed Ritalin more, go to jail more and go on to get only 40% of college degrees. They commit suicide 4 times as much as girls, a ratio that continues through adulthood.
Girls need our help and deserve it. A generation ago, we began to realize it, and we paid attention to the needs of girls in our schools.
Now, boys need our help. They deserve it too.
24
Note that these are asian kids in the US. In Asia the numbers will probably not match the study.
@Mannyv Which would seem to support that there are social environment and peer pressure factors at work, as the author explained
4
@Mannyv That is exactly the point. The gender difference in scholastic achievement is not innate, but environmental.
3
It depends on where in Asia. I think the pressure on boys to perform well academically is very high in Asia.
Thank you for the very professional way this author pointed out both the limitations of the quoted study as well as how the findings fit prevailing data.
1
"Boys get the message that doing well in school is not masculine. Even in peer groups that prize good grades, it’s considered uncool to try hard to earn them."
Apparently, things haven't changed since I was in high school almost 50 years ago. Maybe we can learn something from our Asian-American neighbors.
5
Or maybe, there is something innate and certain cultures, here Asian, overcome this gender difference with support/pressure/culture- but there is a catch! They can't control the behavior/outcomes for ever, and by middle school, the boys break out on their own and the innate traits manifest in their performance.
It seems the only time, we embrace gender differences as real, is when we are supporter a trans youth in their absolute knowledge that they are a "different gender". You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either we acknowledge obvious tendencies within genders or keep on pointing to outside constructs.
5
@Maria
Nothing really different about certain cultures in this respect as developed Asian countries like SKorea, Taiwan and Japan are also seeing female students outpacing their male counterparts.
@Maria Note that some Asian cultures are more open to gender identity fluidity, they are not all the same and this study was too small to show any patterns among particular Asian immigrant groups
1
Good insights here. Some points I would add:
A school setup that includes time for physical activity may be of greater importance to boys (though of value to girls as well), and help more boys maximize their learning potential. It's more common for boys to have trouble sitting still and staying focused on learning, without intervals of physical activity to blow off steam. Many are branded as troublemakers or drugged with ADD/ADHD medications when exercise would be a simpler and better solution.
More male teachers in the schools would also help. As positive role models that many boys can more easily relate to, and to help prevent the school environment from trending toward a 'by women, for women' operation. (To the extent that boys have a different culture more easily understood by men than women, or female teachers are concerned more about the girls development than the boys). I feel there was a time when boys interests were more focused upon in schools, to the detriment of girls, and presently it is the opposite - schools have become a by women, for women operation to some degree. Neither is ideal, we should strive to give the best learning environment for everyone, especially in an age when education and learning ability seems more important than ever to one's long-term prospects.
20
As an Asian parent, I repeatedly told my boys that you go to school primarily for learning; everything else is secondary. Your future success lies in how to utilize your brain power, not muscles, as best as you can. Your spot at best colleges / universities is not a local competition, but a global one. I remind them that students in Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, China, and India, study much harder and longer than your peers in American schools. Lastly, "Be a good person first, do your best in everything you do." The rest is up to God.
49
The strata are defined by ancestry and ethnicity, and associated cultural attitudes. The concept of "race" has long been debunked as a meaningless creation of racists. It is time for editors to require contributors not use the term in their articles.
5
@wg owen
This isn't about race. It's about ethnicity and culture.
2
We live in a society in which women claim that they want men to be more feminized, yet most women are entranced by the "Bad Boy", i.e., even the prim and polished Sandra Bullock once married the tattooed and non-college educated Jesse James, who is now a figure of irrelevant obscurity.
Perhaps it should surprise no one that serial killers in prison receive hundreds, if not thousands of letters each year in prison from female admirers. This is the nation we live in. Yes, many women are insane.
The men and women in education are mostly Betas: soft-spoken, little to no muscle tone, low energy, low testosterone people (after all, "those who can, do, those who can't, teach").
As an Alpha male and essentially a living Thor (bench 300+ with over a hundred reps in several minutes, squat 500+, run a mile in 4 minutes), I am routinely treated like an idiot and talked down to by both women and men who are Betas, and believe that only Betas have a life of the mind.
Our educational system is all about crushing the Alpha male.
The high-energy drive, muscle and dominance of the alpha male is something professional women pretend do anything they can to destroy and denigrate, when in secret, they are utterly entranced and allured by it.
3
@Brendan Did you just describe yourself as a living Thor?
14
Those who teach are often highly skilled at both their subject AND how to impart that knowledge. But apparently because they don’t even lift, you imagine they are “betas”... which is a made up term anyway by insecure man children who can’t understand why everyone isn’t admiring them like Thor. Look, if you like physical exercise, go for it. But particularly in today’s world that’s a rather limited skill set, tethered to a repulsive ego judging by your pronouncements. I’d suggest some serious work on developing a personality @nd interests in other people and figure out why you need to insult them and put them down while puffing yourself up. I’m sure you’d find a much more receptive and interesting world around you them.
26
Odd that when boys are struggling so hard in school we blame the boys, or their masculinity, rather than examining the huge bias within most schools favoring girls. Everything about school today favors girls and punishes boys- my son had his first male teacher in 7th grade! His school student council hasn't had a boy on council in 15 years, and the top 10 graduates are usually 9-1 girls.
If these numbers were reversed it would be a national emergency. We would not be blaming the girls for their femininity. We would change the school to better suit the natural inclination of boys.
22
@keith
I was born in 1960. We had our first male teacher in 7th grade. Boys were expected to behave and to do their homework, and for the most part they did. Evidently something has changed, but I don't believe schools have been feminized and I know it's not that boys are suddenly now expected to sit quietly in their seats during class time. They were expected to do that back in my day.
23
@Laura I truly believe that one of the things that has had a huge impact is that opportunities to move- PE and recess- have been sharply curtailed. In our district, PE is twice a week and recess is 20 minutes.
6
You do realize no one is keeping men out of teaching? Rather it’s that education particularly in the primary grades has gotten away with devaluing and paying teachers less so that men find it less appealing due to cultural feelings that they should have more prestige and pay in jobs. Most schools would love to get more male teachers.
17
It's interesting to read the comments. As a regular reader of The Times, I expect a generally enlightened point of view in the comments, yet this article demonstrates that there are quite a few readers / commenters who appear to feel threatened by the article.
I grew up in a sheltered environment (my wife always tells me). Both of my parents attended college (CCNY) but dropped out in the Depression. I attended a high school that had as many Nobel Laureates as any of the NYC Specialized High Schools (e.g., Bronx Science), so no one applied for them. Everyone I knew received a Regents Scholarship and was a Merit Semi-Finalist.
The football coach was generally looked down on for his attitude that football and winning was the greatest good. And virtually everyone went on to professional jobs. Except for one friend who majored in the Auto Shop and owns one of the top auto body firms in the area. He is where you take your Rolls.
And most shocking, boys expected to, and did have professional careers, and marry professional women. And girls expected to, and did have professional careers, and marry professional men.
So (it appears to me) that if children are given reasonable expectations they will tend to fulfill them. They are not likely to all become rich professional athletes but they can become successful professionals.
14
@Eugene The Auto Shop is part of a profession known as Business management, the owner is running a successful business in a multifaceted way and is also a mechanical expert. I consider that person to be a professional, not an amateur or lower skilled worker. Best not to have that "degree based knowledge only" blind spot.
2
What we carefully ignore is the pervasive, very quiet malice towards high-i.q. boys in school - particularly if they are also very moral in an independent-minded way, and thus seen as particularly 'problematic'. I suspect that a great many smart men and boys who worked hard in school, particularly if they were the sort of kids who actually marched to the beat of their own drum (rather than using a fraudulent claim to difference as an excuse to bully students whose work ethic they resented) may be simply too wary of the threat of malicious retaliation to talk about it, but probably went through some the same relentless harassment that I did, from feminist teachers. It's difficult to convey a sense of it in 1500 characters, but a few minor incidents : in third grade (this is 1980), the librarian starting to explain that she'd only given me a 'student of the month' award because I was the only student who used the library, and would have preferred avoiding it, her voice gradually rising to a shriek (I'm not exaggerating) as she said that no one would ever award anything to (her words) 'the smartest macho boy in the class' again. (She was clear and serious: being smart and a boy was beyond the pale in it's iniquity.) Taking the PSAT in high school, the school headmistress erasing some of my answers, straight back the line, to cut down my grade. A girl I knew saw her, said nothing. "Social justice' is a self-serving, cynical excuse for feminists to indulge in malicious sabotage.
14
@TPM
Ditto: 2nd grade, 1967. The first time it happened I crumpled. Within a few years I figured out what game was afoot and began a slow subtle turning of the tables against authority figures. It has been a slow evolution. It seems particularly acute for the most verbal guys, v engineering and math guys: perhaps they match a teacher's presuppositions. This predates feminism; I think it's something else entirely.
2
This happens to any outspoken person in a power gradient situation regardless of gender. Being smart and outspoken usually also requires resilience.
1
American society worships football players as model of masculinity. Scientists and engineers are unheralded, unrecognized in their contribution to the well being of environment and people. Masculinity is about aggression, sexual ventures by numbers of women with whom they engage in sex, or worst the number of women they have violated, e.g Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby etc.. Lastly, wealth is the emblem of a man's success that is recognized and rewarded by society with power over others, e.g. Donald Trump.
Asian family's emphases are on scholarship and hardwork, parents citing their own struggle and success as model for their children. Their belief is the less their teenagers are exposed to American popular culture, the better they perform in school. Asian girls grow up being less conscious of their popularity in school, their appearance/attractiveness, and status to boys. At home, parents have high expections of their children's success in school.
High schools should concentrate on education only. Remove all the social dance and programs to reduce popularity competition. Better yet, make "boys only" schools as alternative placement, like Catholic schools for boys with male teachers as mature role model and advisers. Let parents decide on social engagements and sports participation for their after school activity.
Lastly, limit children's media time. Their use of media has replaced face to face human engagement to the demise of their emotional maturity.
6
@Agnes
You raise really interesting points, but have mislabeled the problem. What you've labeled "masculinity" is actually TOXIC masculinity. There's a big difference, and the failure to differentiate between healthy masculinity (strength, honor, caring about others, the ability to be gentle as well as strong and to be sensitive to the needs of others, just for a start) and the toxic variety you describe is part of why we're having so much trouble getting men to listen when we try to address the problem.
6
@Agnes
While there is some truth to what you say, wouldn't label it so much an "Asian" thing as it being an immigrant thing.
For example, children of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean make up a high % of the black student body at the elite universities.
Asian countries are seeing similar disparities between male and female students.
2
@Agnes Social adjustment is part of overall well being for all humans. We should not be confused and believe we will impose our own wishful thinking as parents that only study and education will matter, if parents do the magical right thing. We have evolved as a social group based species, human brains are built specifically to function in a highly complex social environment as well as for intellectual pursuits. The reality of immigration is that the children will grow and develop in a social environment that is different from that experienced by their parents. If the parents are in denial or trying to force an artificial reality they will create dissonance and stress that will surface in their children's behavior in other ways. It may be better that at home the family can acknowledge the social differences, and explain that by choice the parents' values are more focused on education, professional achievement, general emphasis on knowledge and personal growth, that the student may see otherwise in some environments outside the home and in the media.
My son does not underachieve and he is a white male, now in Grade 11 and will be applying for university next year. He played on the basketball team last year and is involved in jazz music and debating. He has good friends, a girlfriend and a joy to spend time with. HIs average is close to 100%. More research needs to be in the area of boys who are achieving a la positive psychology! I know there are more out there!
5
Education research showed 30 years ago that schoolrooms rewarded male and female behavior differently. It was used to argue that girls were discriminated against. More than decade ago researchers showed that male preferences in reading and writing were excluded from classrooms, making it harder to succeed as a boy in school.
Nice to see the NYT catching onto the idea that educating children as who they are is a good idea.
9
This recent "boys in crisis" view of schooling is a head-scratcher. For the longest time the idea was that girls had to pull ahead. Now that they have, everyone is panicking. You'd think people would be happy. Be careful what you wish for, perhaps?
And in any case, since when has the reason for boys' grades been a mystery? I did well in school, but since 90% of the guys were concerned only about sports and trucks and bullying each other, it was no surprise they did badly in class. So it's always been about the culture, and obviously so. I mean, it really could not be more obvious.
Maybe boys could pay attention to the fact they're falling behind and learn from the evidence. Wait, this is America. That'll never happen.
Sigh.
15
@Meta-Nihilist
When girls were "behind in school," we did panic, and rightly so. We got to work to pay better attention to their needs. It worked! They needed help, and we gave it.
Now, boys drop out more, are kicked out more, are force-fed Ritalin more, commit suicide 4 TIMEs as often, and go on to get only 40% of college degrees, a number that continues to drop.
Just as girls needed help, deserved it, and got it, our boys need help and deserve it.
Will they get it?
4
Culture is not bound by race. Examine the intellectual culture at schools that do well or not with both girls and boys. There are lessons in careful and considered observations that can lead to informed interventions.
5
My son has done exceptionally well in school and is set to graduate high school in June and attend university in September. Apart from being naturally bright I would attribute his success to:
1) A multi-generational familial valuing of education and high expectations for academic success in a supportive but non pushy way (we reward success but do not punish failure).
2) Academically successful role models
3) A dedicated stay at home parent to be able to support his education and encourage his interests outside of school
4) Attending schools that value academic success and that do not place an excessive focus on athletics
5) A close friend group dominated by Asian girls (and no we are not Asian)
6) Enrolment in a special program in his public high school for high academic achievers where he is surrounded by other equally academically focused peers
It helps that because his school runs a specialty program for high achievers, being academic is valued and not stigmatized. The kids in the program hold the majority of executive positions in the school clubs and sports teams. They basically run the school (and they aren't "nerds" or "geeks").
6
@NorthernValkyrie I appreciate your comments except a stay at home mum ..be careful as it comes across as unsupportive and judgemental to all the women and mothers out there who are managing to do both !
11
@Elisabeth The comment is judgmental. It's 2019, we need to stop blaming moms who work outside of the home!
10
@FLF I know it is isn't it!!!
2
An interesting article on academic performance. My family on both sides are of Northern European ancestry and both sides left the Russian empire in the 19th century. Father's side were farmers and my father only got as far at the 8th grade presuming further education was not needed as he was going to continue the farming tradition. My mother's side were urban and her father was a factory worker, but education was valued.
My siblings and I grew up on a farm with an understanding, not really spoken but subliminal, that we children were to do our farm work and also work hard on our schoolwork. The farm was a business, but my father had a day job as a Teamster truck driver.
All three of us children graduated from high school often with honors; all three went on to college and graduated in 4 years; two of us got master's or professional degrees. All of us have had successful careers. And for the next generation, all four of them went to college, graduated in 4 years, now with professional careers.
Factors include the family's unspoken understandings that education was important. Life on the farm was a place with minimal external pressures from social peers. Lutheran church attendance was another factor. Finally the Midwest public schools were good in the 50s & 60s as the industrial tax base provided solid revenues. With globalization and the decimation of the Midwest's tax base, schools system vary with rich suburbs good, city schools could be a dice roll.
3
It's nice to see a study that reinforces what many people have said all along--parental, cultural, and social influence have a big impact on a child's educational attainment. The US spends so much money trying to close education gaps but it has not worked and probably will not work because there are so many more influential factors such as parents and culture at play. It does not sound politically correct but I would like to see more studies that assess which factors really influence differences in educational outcomes. Once we figure out those factors, then we can decide how best to target the problem.
11
What factor most influences outcomes? Socio-economic status/poverty.
A lot of good information in the article. The influence of parent's attitudes is clearly present. I don't quite understand the statement that boys get the message that doing well in school is not masculine or why it happens. On the flip side, living in rural red state flyover country, girls are regularly and consistently discouraged to reach for educational attainment and STEM is particularly disliked for girls. However, they do persevere. As a judge in regional and state science competitions for almost 3 decades, girls outnumber boys by a wide margin. Why so many parents enforce gender stereotypes with regard to their children's education and educational attainment is the core issue.
9
About 5 years back a poll among American parents discovered that 25% believed their child would grow up to be a professional athlete. This is the problem. Americans are so entranced by celebrity and media that they no longer have reasonable expectations regarding their children’s abilities. As a teacher I witness this attitude in parent meeting often. Little Stevie doesn’t need to strive in school because he’s going to be a great sports star.
47
"The sample size is relatively small, and the analysis uses grades, which, unlike test scores, are influenced by teachers’ subjective assessments of students."
Interesting that this blanket quotation has no references to research which supports it. It replicates a pervasive attitude which has undermined the confidence of teachers, driven them from the profession, and given ammunition to their critics. In short, it is a harmful stereotype which appears here unchallenged.
6
This is my 24th year teaching, half in a private, secular K12 college prep school and half in public (in two states).
I often though about why students did so much better in the private school where I worked.
There are lots of reasons on paper for thinking kids might not progress academically despite paying astronomical prices for tuition+ at the private school.
1. teachers there were not required to have education degrees; some were hired only because they either had degrees from ivy league schools and/or they were experts in other desired fields, say chess . . .
2. While some teachers chose to take classes and travel to improve their teaching, this was not the norm. Many teachers taught the same thing for years. Laminated lesson plans. . . Lots of memorization and old fashion lecture and notes.
Despite all of this, kids thrived and continue to do so. These are the differences I see from public schools:
1. Smaller class sizes. I had 11 to 21 students. Had to relearn how to teach, but once I did, it was a dream.
2. School atmosphere-- It was cool to be smart whether you were in k or 12th grade.
3. Fab after-school outdoor club.
4. Wide variety of celebrated of non-sports clubs.
5. No drop sports--everyone who wants to play plays.
6. Parents cared about education--lots of scholarship kids but everyone had to pay something.
7. K-6 kids were required to take art, P.E. and foreign language for over an hour a week.
Kids with learning disabilities were accepted.
38
Is it surprising that boys face implicit bias when more than three out of four teachers are female? Or that they struggle with identity when they are taught that masculinity itself is toxic?
It's shameful that we refuse to take discrimination against men and boys seriously. The future is female - by omission.
44
@Graduate
There is nothing stopping men from going into education. Oh wait there is...lack of respect for teachers...ridiculously low wages in some areas....The powers that be deciding to use teachers as the reason for this country’s lack of educational achievement and not acknowledging society’s lack of support for education. What other profession encourages you to spend your own income offering rewards for achievement. What other profession has to beg for the basic supplies needed to do their job. Have you seen the supply list? Hand sanitizer, tissue paper, wipes, binder paper, pencils, etc. The reason men don’t join is not that their excluded but because after they’ve gone through all the hard work and expense of college they expect better. When society changes its attitude about the profession and the work place offers more financial incentives men will flock to the field as they have to the nursing profession.
44
@Graduate You act like there's some deliberate feminist conspiracy that results in the gender imbalance in teachers, when the fact is it became that way precisely because there weren't that many professions open to women when women began working outside the home. This also explains why nursing is predominantly female. Men didn't want those jobs then, and many still don't, to the economic detriment of men as healthcare is the fastest-growing job sector in many markets these days. As for masculinity, it's not the only gender role being called out in the article: "The most traditionally feminine girls and the most masculine boys had the lowest grades." Maybe the gender roles themselves are the problem, and this appears true for *both* gender roles. The future should not be tied to toxic societally-determined gender roles.
18
Who gives grades to elementary students?
@Jeanine Every teacher who is required by their state to give grades gives grades. It's not a choice for public school teachers.
7
When I was in specialized HS in NYC, it wasn't that girls were academically better. It was the HS teachers are always nicer to girls and they always give Asian guys lower grades even though we raised our hands more and do better in tests. The subjectivity in grades by white male teachers was prevalent. Even during college, white male teachers were always trying to get to know Asian female students and unfairly target Asian male students with lower grades. I know this for a fact because those Asian females that had better grades than me did not do well on their SATs as I did. Where's the study that shows white male preference for Asian female students?
10
@Vision33r Sorry, but you doing better on your SATs than some of your peers doesn't show that your teachers were biased against you or against Asian males in general. It shows that you did better on one test, one time, than some of your female Asian peers.
6
@M
However, US Census data shows that Asian-American males start falling behind their white male counterparts (of similar education level) in income w/ the gap increasing the higher you go up in age groups.
Otoh, there ISN'T an income gap between Asian-American females and their white female counterparts (of similar education level) even at the higher age groupings (of course, there is the income gap btwn the genders).
2
Why are we worried about this?
3
@Qnbe. Seriously! Men still run everything! I do not understand.
5
@Qnbe I think it has something to do with half the population being denied a fair education. Check the stats. Boy and girl students misbehave at exactly the same rates, just in different ways. Ever seen the stats on who gets disciplined?
2
Every stat I’ve seen on this indicates there is far more misbehavior among boys than girls, although often they point out it’s the kind of behavior that would be helped by more recess.
3
The “wussification” of America has led to an all out war on boys - especially in academia. Schools are organized and run to reward traits intrinsically female. Anyone who has raised boys and girls understand the different circumstances which cause boys and girls to flourish.
Beware - a country that despised and attacks masculinity will inevitably be forced to endure huge numbers of disenfranchised males, and feminized eunuchs.
7
@James because we are all better off with violent, poorly socialized, jailbird males who require cradle to grave social services?
15
@James
Actually, it's more the opposite.
"Boys perform better in school when achievement is considered to be desirable, and when they believe successful men get their power from education versus strength and toughness."
The problem is that males are rewarded for the latter with money, power and social popularity. Smart men who are highly educated but who reject the competitive winner-take-all model of the business world just end up poor, unpopular and alone. If women fell in love with the poets instead of the venture capitalists we'd all be better off.
12
What this article doesn't mention is that the same thing - female students out-performing male students - is also
seen in countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
This is also the reason why an increasing no. of universities/colleges in the US are using affirmative action in admissions to increase male (primarily white) representation, as they do not want too much of a gender imbalance in the student body.
1
Family and social expectations are important. Students will apply themselves if it is meaningful for them. But, school performance for boys may improve as social expectations about masculinity and femininity change. My daughter has a crush on an Asian boy at school because she thinks he is really smart and studious like her. She also thinks he is more mature and less rough and rowdy than the other boys. She likes that he is gentle. He is also good at sport, which she isn’t and I think she admires that too, because it’s something she struggles with. Of course, he may not look at her because she is smart and pretty but not Asian. That is another issue. So I reckon the answer to low achieving boys is girls. Once girls start showing they like smart high achieving boys, boys that are strong but gentle, the boys will lift their game.
9
Actually, girls are discriminated against in school differently - in math and science for instance from an early age - this impact continues throughout school. In computer science in the United States, for instance, just 18.5 percent of the high school students who take the Advanced Placement exam are girls. In college, women earn only 12 percent of computer science degree. Even in preschool boys are favored and encouraged to speak more -ancedotal but my own child was deemed a "chatty cathy" rather than the highly verbal label reserved for smart boys. It is common to see articles about how hurt boys are by schools, you don't see as often studies that show negatives impacts on girls, like perfectionism, social pressure to conform, poor body image, disregarding them in math in science and other forms of sexism.
12
Why are we so worried about how well boys do in school? As soon as they get out in the real world, it doesn't matter -- the deck is still stacked in their favor in virtually EVERY profession, except perhaps teaching (and then only at the K-12 level; tenured University positions are still lopsidedly male). When we see women dominating business, academia, medicine, and the law, then we can start worrying about how men are doing.
58
@Anna You left out a few other male superlatives: suicide, unemployment, prison sentences, early death, murder victims ...on and on.
Every woman in my extended family makes more than her spouse (except my wife, who is tied with me for "not much"). This has been true since the 60's.
5
All those words to state the obvious - expectations at home are key and a plan to make sure they are met to the best of your ability.
36
@ConcernedParent
Agreed...strong peer allies are a very useful 2'nd.
1
The study researchers have the problem wrong. Looked at a different way, we should ask ourselves, why are so many girls held hostage by perfectionist tendencies that make them dot every i and cross every t in school, and will this attribute serve them well when they enter the workplace and deal with their lives after school?
Maybe we should figure out what makes some students be able to sort out what is important and understand the big picture while still able to reasonably finish work. Sure, these students may have slightly lower grades but may in the long run turn out to have better paying positions and better balanced lives.
The commentator below was on spot when stating that schools are designed for compliant girls. We need to design schools better for all students, including very bright active students of any gender among others.
90
@Charlie
If more people in the US workplace dotted every i and crossed every t, work would function much more smoothly. You glorify the sloppy people who are owners and insist that all of their employees be as sloppy as themselves by dismissing the competent.
6
@Charlie Agree....school focus/boundaries are ideal for certain types of personalities/characteristics....but learning is much much much broader.....Try living over seas and then come back....the difference in a considerable increase in wisdom you could not easily find/learn in schools.....
3
@DP
I do not find your prescriptions incompatible with academic achievement, which you seem to imply.
As a university student, I studied Latin and German in addition to my scientific discipline. I found my five years of Latin studies, particularly, valuable for five years of life in Puerto Rico. I had arrived there to lecture in English with no prior instruction whatsoever in Spanish, but I could nonetheless read Spanish handily in order to navigate my daily life and business affairs.
I found intellectually valuable my "grand tour" of western Europe immediately at the completion of my undergraduate studies. "Grand tours" were features of academic life as early as the seventeenth century.
1
"The study adds to a growing body of research suggesting that boys’ underperformance is not because of anything innate to boys. Instead, it seems, it’s largely because of something external: their school environments and peer influences."
Nonsense. With Asian families, it's 100% the parents forcing them to study, and if they're hanging out with other Asian kids, their friends are studying too. If White, Latino, and Black kids studied like that, we'd all be going to Berkeley and UCLA, too.
70
@Kathryn McDonald
Uhh, could we STEREOTYPE any more?
And it's not nonsense as school environments and peer influences take greater hold in HS than grade school.
Also, the same thing (which the article doesn't mention) is seen in countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Japan - where female students are out-performing male students.
5
@Kathryn McDonald...Kathryn....what is the suicide rate of Asian American Students....during and post graduation . I heard that this achieving group is less happy and suffers from stress induced by many outside forces....
1
@Kathryn McDonald
Jewish children (those born to Jewish moms) are also forced to study (if they don't do it on their own) and you can see the results.
8
I know I might get a lot of blowback for this, but it's a hypothesis folks. I'm a white person who married an Asian and now we have a bi-racial son. One thing I learned is that Asian children tend to have a different growth curve in childhood. In Kindergarten my son was the smallest of all the boys and girls in his class. When he was little I worried a bit about his size but my in-laws clued me in to the fact that he would likely catch up in height, and now at 14 he sure has and is one of the taller boys. So my point is, how do these researchers really know that the academic performance of Asian boys is due to social influences and not just that their hormones kick in later?
24
@Gnut - yes the little man resentment - I'm thinking of friends - a Vietnamese family - the oldest girl is large and confident - the middle boy is relatively tiny and skinny - he has been bullied at school by girls - he got in trouble for punching back a girl who poked him in his sore eye. He walks around looking unhappy if not resentful about his lot in life.
His father was a poorly-educated boat person stuck in a Thai refugee camp for 2 years - and now works 4am shifts in a factory and tends to shout at his son - which alienates the son who seems keen to become the opposite.
So the boy is very keen on knowledge - but at 8 he's tiny - so now I'm wondering if he will get the growth spurt you say - which might totally change his perspective (literally) from 'looked down on' to a somewhat 'superior being' ...
1
@Gnut--After being average in childhood, my Anglo son was the smallest kid in his class in middle school. And not much better in high school. In college he reached his full height of 6 feet, just like his dad, whom I expect had the same trajectory.
My son's wife is Asian. She is close to average height, but her sister is very small and that sister's twin brother is 6 feet.
It can happen in any family; this is another stereotype that can be harmful.
2
@Gnut
You know, "big" Asians do exist.
Has nothing to do w/a race/group, but individual characteristics.
In Asia, there are big kids, small kids and average size kids - just like here.
1
I must have fallen asleep for thirty years, because it seems like only yesterday we were talking about how boys were doing better at school than girls. It was all the rage to ask how we could change schooling to meet the needs of girls.
I graduated high school in 1981. I followed what I wanted to do. I worked hard at math and science, and I worked hard on my swimming for the school team. I never felt ostracized for either. I got excellent grades and was co-captain of the swim team my senior year.
My older sister did the same thing, in the same school, with the same teachers. She did not learn "female" math, nor did I learn "male" math. We both ended up studying computer science in college.
I guess in hindsight we should both give thanks and praise to our parents for doing a good job letting us know we could just be ourselves.
35
In our province, the change in teaching and focus on learning styles that support females' academic success has resulted in a corresponding decline in males' academic success in high schools. The dearth of male teaching role models in primary and middle school also creates challenges for male students. Many of the teachers I know remark how much difference there is when students have experience with positive male teachers. However, students also need positive support outside of the classroom - especially from parents. As an elementary teacher, my wife sees too many parents who want to be their children's friends rather than their parents, they refuse to be accountable for their own results and so they don't hold their children accountable - poor results / behaviour are always someone else's fault.
Generally, the most successful students I've seen tend to have be held accountable for their own behaviour and study habits. No one goes to schools to try and bully teachers and administrators to give the students better results than their work merits or their test scores show; they work with the system to ensure that the students understand what is needed to be successful and how to advocate for themselves when they need help.
Our boys are now well past high school and close to finishing their university degrees; they have good marks, but like most, they have had their challenges and poor marks that they have had to figure out how to overcome.
Real achievement is not a 4.0 GPA
13
@nvguy Real achievement in life is not your 4.0 GPA in school....couldn't agree with you more!
4
Instead of studies that try to find solutions to 1/3 of one grade difference, maybe we should focus on the vast differences in the quality of education provided.
By the way, I was in high school in the late 70s and there was a place for students that were not jocks. We seem to be trying really hard to prove that were so awful in the past and we are wonderfully enlightened now.
Lastly, expectations by parents are the greatest determinant of academic success, by a huge margin. I helped raise three now-successful young adults and I've seen very few exceptions over their collective 12 years (kids were four years apart). So how do you solve THAT problem?!
4
The older I get .... the more I thank the nuns. How did they do it? The baby boom was ending but they still had 40+ kids in the class. Some how this gay kid survived -- went to a top USA university and then across the pond to another. I would have been on ADD meds today.
Expectation -- They told me I could do it ... helped me do it .. and sometimes made me do it. I did it ... all w/o any catholic guilt. Funny -- I just went to my 40th HS -- we all did it.
76
At the end of the day, the nuns cared enough to push you. Hard. I am a public school teacher, and today’s kids are protected from everything. It isn’t good.
14
@GT
When you got antsy, they sent you off to clap the erasers. The boys went to alter boy training to keep them occupied. The nun, with her class of 40+ [I'm a middle boomer, we had 50 kids per class.] divided the school day between lecturing with an engaged classroom and students raising their hands with quiet work with higher grade students helping those who hadn't gotten it yet.
She also noticed when a student seemed sleepy the last month and teased out the information that mom and her newborn had spent a week in the hospital with the newborn sister, and grandma and dad hadn't been doing a good job of getting the siblings to bed on time, and that the family was now adjusting to the new baby, who they loved.
Yup. Fifty kids in the classroom and each one got the attention they needed. It was detected that a couple needed glasses, one needed a hearing aid and rambunctious boys needed to be sent out to run around like crazy kids for part of the day rather than being drugged into compliance for ADD.
23
@GT Funny what positive reinforcement can do.
4
As a smart boy who enjoyed learning and did well in school, I was brutalized by bullies who called me many names and did everything they could, to prevent me from succeeding at my studies. It was plainly not "appropriate" for me to get good grades. I understand completely why boys find it so difficult to do well in school.
111
@MarkKA
Gosh, really? Boys become the men they're raised to be? It's not all in their genes? What a concept!
The men's movement, the target of so many sarcastic and snide remarks over the past some decades, grew out of the realization that most of what's called "masculinity" is defined, not inherited. And that much standard US masculinity is toxic to men themselves, let alone to their families and communities. There are refuge locales across the country for men who want to move beyond the standard, places in the US where men can develop other ways to live, places where hyped-up violence and emotional phobia aren't rewarded, where beer and the NFL aren't the measure of a man's worth. Thanks in part to the men's movement.
8
@MarkKA
Spot on!
Kids who are looked on (by the jocks ie bullies ) as academic are constantly harassed until their performance drops of a cliff.
6
@MarkKA Agree but it is not just boys who find academic excellence a problem. My wife who got her PhD in the sciences over 3 decades ago has stories that would curl your hair.
3
I am particularly interested in the statement that the more stereotypically feminine or masculine a student is, the lower the academic achievement. That explains a lot.
In high achieving high schools, there tends to be less of a football/cheerleader culture. Schools that have boys who dance and girls who do STEM are good environments.
At our school, Asian students don't conform much to the chess & computer nerd stereotypes. The lead in the most recent musical was a Chinese boy!
87
@Cousy. I wish that parents knew that trying to force 'traditional gender' stereotypical behavior on their children is harmful. Every person is unique !
Hormones. Testosterone creates more energy which is a hindrance when unfocused.
Prescription: Separate boys and girls from middle until the end of high school. Their hormonal brains and bodies are at war. Gendered environments where students can focus, be supportive of each other, and have responsibilities (sports, ROTC, band, clubs etc) should be mandatory.
15
Testosterone levels aren’t different in Asian boys. This article provides evidence that it is NOT innate biological differences leading to lower performance.
30
@Nick Do you know that for sure? (genuine question) Has it been tested? Because as I noted in my comment, Asian children have a slower growth curve and don't shoot up until later in childhood. I would expect that growth rates are linked in some way to hormone levels.
8
@Gnut
I agree completely. My experience is that the later maturing boys of any race do better in school. There could be several explanations including hormones and distractions such as girls and sports.
1
Jean Harris, the sociologist who emphasized the influence of peers on children, died the other day. Would be interesting to see how her reincarnation would deal with this data.
3
Why do some children succeed, why isn't academic success linear, why does this group do better than that group,...? These questions are hashed and re-hashed with few definitive answers that can be applied across the board.
Currently, "Educated", "Hillbilly Elegy", and "There Will Be No Miracles Here" look at the question from the eyes and memories of three people who "made it" so to speak.
Solid families, quiet environments, supportive parents/adults, all seem to be themes but are not 100% consistent. There are always outliers. Also, different people want different things from young people depending on their personal desires. Few are willing to encourage people to become Friedman's "Self-Starting, Life-Long Learners" because that doesn't fit the standard desires for high income, high prestige, adult employment in synch with the latest trends in education (currently STEM).
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@George N. Wells....How many Asian children are taught at home ? Is home school factored into the study/report ?
You should be ware that in China, people do work as trash collectors and sandwich-makers.
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@Ed From what I have seen in my years in China is that they work in Sweat Shops working long hours with barely enough earnings to pay for the necessities....Maybe Trash collections and Sandwich making would be preferable....
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Over the last several decades, athletics has been unduly elevated in prominence at all levels of school, K-university. The pressure to participate falls more heavily on boys in the real world.
This is a real drain on time for academics. It is also an eddying drain on education budgets.
Why not start with acknowledging that sports is a pastime for most, and take it out of schools beyond routine PE classes? Let tweens and teens (especially boys) make their own choices about what they want to pursue for their non-academic dreams.
If we continue to overvalue the ability to throw or catch a football, or to hit a baseball for half of our kids, they will continue to spend an inordinate amount of their time doing so. And for the large majority, all they will ever get is the participation trophy.
Use school resources for education, not recreation.
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@Brian I would say this has been going on much longer than a few decades, but otherwise I agree 100%. If only schools would cheer their academic achievements as much as they do (boys) sports.
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@Brian
I see a higher time drain for boys from video games. Many, many of my male students say that they play video games for hours and hours after they get home from school.
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@Brian....That is an awesome idea..but next to impossible to accomplish, given the marketing/public relations supporting the attrativeness of that institution.
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Hmm... the article says nothing about how male teachers have all but disappeared from the K-12 landscape. In fact, I was assured by a female teacher friend that males were inherently less mature, and that was the source of the problem.
My wife and I tutored my nephew in High School because he was struggling in English, to avoid his failing Senior English. After remarkable improvement, the teacher insisted on failing him anyway, and blocking his graduation. Her explanation? She said he should have done it without any help!
Final story. In my first Semester in graduate school, I had a female Asian teacher who insisted I drop out of the program after I performed badly on one of her tests. I got as far away from her as possible, had male teachers the rest of the way, and graduated with a high GPA.
Sorry. Experience is the teacher.
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@keith
I believe that we are inherently less mature, but tend to catch up after a wake up call or "maturing experience."
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@keith I don't remember any past in which there were many male teachers. I would definitely like to see more men in teaching, but I don't think problem is that the have been driven out. In the US, teaching has always been female-dominated, which is why it pays so badly.
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@Gnut
The pay is low because women like the hours, which would be considered part time in other professions. If you normalize for the number of hours worked, the pay is comparable.
Education programs attract the lowest grade point average high school students, so the wage scales need to be adjusted to peg teachers to below the median wage for professions requiring a college degree.
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While it probably is true that male youth culture stigmatizes doing well in school and this hurts boys in the long run, the continued taboo on considering biological gender differences makes having honest conversations on these issues impossible. Boys have more energy than girls so it's harder for them to sit still for long periods of time. Boys develop later than girls both physically and emotionally, making it harder for them to focus on boring tasks at the same young age. Boys are generally worse at things like having good handwriting and keeping orderly notebooks, and are generally more excited by material that allows for moment to moment competition (standardized tests, sports etc.) as opposed to long-run type stuff (grades). If the whole education system is geared towards ways of learning that are more typically female in these ways, of course girls will do better. About Asians, I've taught classes full of Asian-American students as well as other ethnicities and I don't believe that this is a model that can be replicated by white, black or Hispanic students. Simply put, if a white or black family tried to put as much academic pressure on their kid as an a typical Asian family does, the kid would run away from home. While this culture does deliver results in terms of traditionally defined success, it comes at a steep cost in terms of mental health and simply enjoying youth, and I'm not so sure it's something other groups should be trying to emulate.
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@MK
Perfect comment.
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@MK As a black woman professor, who teaches in a minority majority college, and from a family of artists and intellectuals, you have no idea what you're talking about.
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@MK Well said ... but no one will listen because we are all the same ///Correct?
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This is where complaints about the “Model Minority myth” become a bit mystifying. I get that stereotypes are bad, but at the same time I don’t get how having an expectation that a student will succeed in school is somehow racist. This study shows how it can in fact be a good thing, because it counters the hyper-masculine stereotype of boys being good in sports, not academics (a conclusion that Ms. Hsin unconvincingly tries to dismiss). Maybe what’s racist is NOT expecting that black and Hispanic students are just as capable at succeeding in school as Asian American students?
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@Scott
It is "racist" b/c it treats a group of people (who vary widely) the SAME.
And such a stereotype can back-fire, such as in college admissions or in the work-place (being a good "worker-bee," but not leadership/management material).
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@Scott Stereotypes are best avoided because they constrain people's choices. Yes, it can be good for parents to have high academic expectations, but even among Asians there are those who are better at athletics, or poetry, or diplomacy, etc. Everyone deserves a chance to be their best self.
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@Gnut Yes, stereotypes like Asians develop later physically than other races.
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Your findings are Consistent with our personal experience nice in our kid’s schools. Glad we put our younger one in private school when the public school denied her admission in KG because of September birthday. Grade reports indicated 6th grade level in 3rd grade! Imagine if we had waited another year. She would be bored out of her mind. Will be sure to follow in the footsteps of her brother in high school with straight A’s and then some.
Now just need to figure out how to circumvent the Asian handicap for the Ivy League schools and Stanford/MIT.
Any ideas?
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@Shaker Cherukuri
There is no Asian handicap in college admissions. Asians are wildly over-represented in selective universities.
If you want your kids to get admitted, focus less on grades and test scores (I assure you, your kids will not be special in that regard) and focus more on developing your kids unique strengths and core interests. Take advantage of the most successful and distinctive classes and extracurriculars that your high school offers.
And make sure your kids attend a high school that already admits students to the schools that your kids are interested in. Make a point of understanding the matriculation profile of your high school.
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@Shaker Cherukuri
And one more thing. Private school may put your child at a disadvantage. At Ivy+ colleges, the overwhelming majority of students attended public school. At MIT, the public school percentage is 71%.
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@Shaker Cherukuri, There are a lot of good universities and colleges that are not Ivy League. I don't understand the emphasis on them; why? Is the superior education? Networking opportunities? Something else?
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Nothing tells me more about how Americans think of brainy, thoughtful people as the recent proliferation of adjectives for such people: nerdy, getting in the weeds, geeks. Even major media spokespeople use these terms to excuse their thinking a little more deeply on a subject. Then there are those stereotypes of the crazy scientist, the nutty professor, the father of Frankenstein celebrated in movies and TV. Contrast this to the honor given sports hero’s. What a difference.
Then I think of my mother’s great great great grandfather who placed third among all scholars in China’s imperial examinations. For this honor, he was appointed governor of Canton. Ten years ago, I joined four of my cousins to visit our home village near Shanghai. The mayor and other city officials greeted us as guests of honor simply because we are descendants of this great scholar. Our grandfather of four generations ago is still remembered and venerated. Nothing tells me more of how ancient and modern day China reveres scholarship. It’s hard to erase such deeply entrenched cultural values and so we continue to encourage scholarship in our children, above all other values.
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@citizen vox
It's not simply a matter of honoring scholarship and academics. Even in households that do honor those things, and even in schools where these children are placed, the boys don't do as well as girls. This runs across socioeconomic barriers, race, ethnicity, private school vs public school. It's not simply a matter of not honoring academics.
As the mother of a boy who was very smart but who did badly in school, I found that the school was a great environment for my daughter and horrible for my boy. Just horrible. He was miserable in school but at home he loved to learn. If I could have been a stay-at-home mom and done homeschooling, that would have been a fantastic opportunity. As it was, school nearly ruined him. We are year 2.5 out of high school and he's just beginning to recover from school. We hope that he will decide to attend college someday.
This is a boy who grew up in an academic family, who attended the best schools, and who could read Scientific American in the 5th grade. He's brilliant. The schools nearly ruined him.
I personally believe that schools are aimed at girls now. Boys are shunted to the side. I am a pink-hat-wearing feminist and I believe that schools are doing bad things to boys on average. Blame it on the standardized tests, maybe, that create a false deadline for what you need to learn, and then tie the teachers' jobs to that test. That's a nightmare for anyone not on that arbitrary timeline.
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@citizen vox In the US, lifelong devotees of complex policy issues are dispatched with in one word: wonk.
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@citizen vox Not impressed....Democracy/Freedom should be China's priority...Not what it is now or has been for centuries....
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Have these studies accounted for what appears to be the educational establishment's hostility towards male behaviors and temperaments?
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Maybe what was considered “male behavior and temperaments” (boys will be boys) is no longer acceptable. The hostility you speak of is probably warranted to discourage such behavior. Theres no place for toxic masculinity and machismo anymore. Time’s up!
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@J You seem nice!
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@Green Tea LOL! What are “male” behaviors and temperaments??
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Eventually we will re-learn that single sex high schools are best for both sexes. They give girls the freedom to exercise leadership and excellence and minimize situations where boys feel need to emphasize negative aspects of masculinity.
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@Michael Blazin I'm not sure. I went to a private school that was boys-only until high school when it shifted to being coed. Already in 7th and 8th grade I saw that sort of macho, anti-intellectual posturing taking over social life. The cool kids didn't take their classes seriously, excelled at sports, and hung out with girls from the girls-only private schools at birthday parties and especially bar mitzvahs. In a way, it was even a stronger incentive to conform to this attitude in order to get in with the cool kids, since you couldn't just talk to girls in your classes; you had to get invited to one of these parties.
I believe that Justice Kavanaugh and his esteemed colleague Mr. Squi also went to a boys-only school.
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@Hans Pedersen Kinda/Sorta Agree...separation seems like a great idea on Paper....but does it follow that all races and then nationalies and then those who speak another language...how far down do we parse this separation....to include the separation of rich and poor....No..No...I don't think so...I think everyone should be in the learning machine together...Now if we can just get the voting ballot in one language instead of spanish and english....
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