Why are girls out-performing boys in school?

Question

i don't have a link for stats, but i think it is well known that girls graduate from high school in greater numbers than boys, and girls out-number boys in university. why is this?

i thought these stats were well known. i guess they are not. women *are* over represented in university. they make up about half of the population, but typically make up about 60% of the university population. look at these stats from NYU. http://www.nyu.edu/ir/demographics/demographics0607/enrollmentmenu.php

Answer 1

I believe Time magazine covered this issue in one of their past magazines. If it wasn't Time, it was another widely available newstand magazine.

They concluded that boys and girls have different ways of learning and the school system is more geared toward how females learn. I firmly believe this has nothing to do with feminism, but probably hearkens back to sitting still and focusing on the word of God (aka, a sermon). Maybe I'm completely wrong on this issue, but the current school system did not come into place until fairly recently (in relation to human history, so within the last few hundred years or so). In early times, only privileged men were educated, and most of their lessons occurred outside of the classroom and engaged in activity. In America especially, there was a push for education for both sexes and all social classes, and the "sit still and listen to an authority figure" type system emerged.

The Time studied concluded that boys typically learn better when they are physically engaged in activity. They are less social and would rather think through their problems and manually create a solution. Girls, on the other hand, learn better in a quiet environment where they can be completely mentally engaged in the issue. Girls often problem-solve by talking to other girls and devising a conclusion. When boys and girls are taught in the methods that have shown to be beneficial to their sex, they perform about the same academically. Because of this, there is a big push for single sex education even at the elementary level.

There might be a distraction factor once the boys and girls start to notice each other, and often girls will attempt to not appear to be the "smart" one by shunning math and sciences. Boys often struggle in subjects like creative writing because it deals more with abstract thoughts than concrete answers.

I know I was able to focus a lot more in college than I did in high school because 1) there were no guys around and if I gave the wrong answer or did something silly, I didn't feel embarrassed and 2) I attended a women's college and the education style was geared towards women...it just felt different than my other schooling (I also attended co-educational institutions at the college level but I felt they were too similar to high school in nature).

I hope there are more studies done on this topic because it is quite interesting.

Answer 2

done on this over here and no one research team has come up with a viable solution.
My own views are that society changed in th 70's.
Boys focused more on sport and entertainment.
Girls always had to be persuaded to attempt sport and also found entertainment boring.

Answer 3

A recent study by the Engineers Association showed that, if a little MORE math and basic science were included as the pre-requisite for any graduation, the number of girls graduating compared to boys will drop drastically.

The current economy and business world do not require a large number of people with MORE math and basic science knowledge. All kinds of business require very few workers who have better abilitties in math, science (to design and make the specs) and a large number of people to do the clerical and service oriented work. To make money they need only one "man ish" worker and 10 "woman ish" worker. So they want the educational system of the country to produce educated people in this ratio.

EDIT
The answerer below has no right to ridicule others as evident from a simple web search:
(1) A lawsuit claims that schools routinely discriminate against males. http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=700
(2) Female teachers try to make the boys behave in girl ways, ....
http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/278800.aspx

Answer 4

That's because teachers and parents don't think a good education is as important for a boy as it is for a girl. There are still relatively high paying careers for men that don't really require much of an education such as mining, trucking, or construction worker. Also, there are too many parents out there who think their sons will become the next Tiger Woods and push them into sports so they will become a top athlete and get lucrative endorsement contracts. There's virtually no chance that will happen but many parents like to dream anyway.

Edit: In response to some of the comments about how the courses being taught at school are becoming feminized, I would like to point out that I believe the opposite is happening. Wen my parents were in school, courses like Latin and penmanship were taught. Now, hardly anybody even knows about them anymore. When I was in high school in the 1970s I had to take ONE math class. That's right, just one in four years of high school. Higher math courses were electives and generally only those who were planning on pursuing engineering degrees in college took them. My older daughter, who's now a senior in high school, has had to take algebra, college algebra, trigonometry, and geometry. When I was her age, I knew a lot less math than she does.

Answer 5

Because the education system has decided to put a greater focus on girls' achievement, and less focus on boys.

Laura Bush has stated in several interviews that there needs to be more of a focus on boys, and stated that boys are being ignored. She, being a former teacher, a librarian, and the First Lady, would know about such an issue more than most people.

Boys score higher than girls in both the Math & Verbal on SAT exams, and males score higher than females on IQ exams. The majority of people that score in the "genius" category are male. This shows that clearly boys are not "dumber" than women -- and reveals that something MUST be wrong with the education system. Clearly, the education system is ignoring boys, and is geared more for the advancement of girls.

Answer 6

Because the public schools are bringing in courses like "pole dancing" for 11 old girls. The boys do not do as well.

Answer 7

Interesting question.
Here in The UK in the 1950's and 1960's boys were regularly out performing girls.
That changed in the 1970's.
Lots of research has been done on this over here and no one research team has come up with a viable solution.
My own views are that society changed in th 70's.
Boys focused more on sport and entertainment.
Girls always had to be persuaded to attempt sport and also found entertainment boring.
Hence they focused on their studies.
At university in the 70's the girls in my class consistently outperformed the boys.
It is a trend which has continued- who knows why.

Answer 8

I think because girls are better at memorizing and that is what is beeing taught at school, data input and acessing data, at least till a certain level. It gets better for men at higher levels the university and the like, where men enter fields most women dont dare to toutch.

Answer 9

David:

To an extent you're right. So whose fault is it that men are uninterested in becoming educators of young children? Nothing is stopping them from entering that field.

David: I am agreeing with you. I want to know why you think it is that men don't enter the field and make a positive change for young boys?

I mean, why don't men at least advocate for changes in education? Why have they essentially no presence at all, until it's time to pass blame to women who have had the sole responsibility of educating young kids?

By the way, David, toddlers of both genders imitate adults. Boys are no more inclined to do this than girls. That's just a developmental milestone for children. Some disparity in learning styles occurs later for whatever reason.

It's unfortunate that men don't seem to see a lot of merit in educating young children. They aren't interested in teaching certification. They'll teach college level and sometimes high school, but when it comes to the most formative years, they are essentially nowhere to be seen --until it's time to pass blame.

Lycra: you're talking out or your...hat, as usual. Laura Bush said no such thing. She said pretty much the opposite of what you claimed. She also identifies herself as a feminist. Yet, in fact, she is an idiot. I don't care if she was a Librarian, a Teacher or if she is married to one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history. She is still an idiot and one of the few times she's right about anything is in her disagreement with you.

Do you ever know what you're talking about? Find yourself a new champion.

Answer 10

Joaqin M is actually right. Feminist reforms to the education system some decades ago, b/c females women weren't making it into colleges/universities in equal numbers as men, and hence they believed that there was some sort of anti-female conspiracy whereby women were kept out of higher education, as there was a bias in schools. THIS was the impetus to have changes made in the education system.

So the reason why females are primarily doing better, today, is because the whole education system is geared towards the learning abilities of females - in essence, it has been 'feminized', designed to make males struggle, with all the focus on women. For example, there has been a complete reduced emphasis on competition, tests, quizes, etc, instead in favor of 'assignments'. I mean, we don't exactly have one end-of-year final exam which accounts for the year's total assessment like they did 35+ years ago. This factor alone is detrimental to females - hence the inclusion of 'assignments'. So it's not that girls have all-of-a-sudden become smarter, or that males have suddenly become dumber than they were, it all essentially boils down the learning styles. And in this case, it's in favor of females.