Why are girls out-performing boys in school and colleges?

Question

I heard that in the US, girls graduate from high school in greater numbers than boys, and girls out-number boys in university. Why is this? Do you think our education system are bias toward girls/women and boys are being put at an disadvantage?

Interesting point, LycraSpandex

Answer 1

This is true, and we are still trying to figure out why. There are far more male students than female in schools to begin with, and the females are generally doing better. They tend to dominate the honor societies and Dean's lists. I know that in my department, the top 12 students this semester are female - 13 and 14 are male, and then it goes on to a lot more females. I was so disturbed when I realized this that I alerted the Dean about it. And I should point out that I work in a business school, which is traditionally male-dominated.

One issue we run into is that when it is suggested that we need to do something to help the men achieve, someone always implies that this is just payback for the centuries of male domination. Then a lot of people laugh, and the whole issue gets pushed aside.

Answer 2

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 3

I have to disagree with Don Juan and Latina. In all of my AP classes there are only about 5 guys and the other 30 students are female. I think guys have just become lazy in school. Sure they get back on track during college but look at most of the college populations. It's slowly shifting to all girls. I do not blame the education system and have to say that ever since women have had the same rights as men they've taken a greater advantage of what men have had since after the nomadic era while the guys are just taking what they have for granted.

Answer 4

Overall, it's about equal at the college level. The disparity is in major departments. Hard sciences and especially engineering is dominated by males. The example of one or two females out of a class of 30 in an engineering core is quite typical even today. Meanwhile, majors such as psychology have something like 80% enrolled as females. Seems to me that females are being rewarded for pursuing majors that are not as demanding.

Answer 5

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 6

Women just naturally have more patience and stuff for school. Also, there's a lot of good-paying manual labour jobs you can do after high school, like working on the rigs, that appeal to men much more than women. So women go to school.

Anyway as this trend becomes more evident we'll see more guys going to college, to hook up with all the girls.

Answer 7

I don't think it's always true. There are a lot of biased statistics out there and their objective is simply to make out that girls are brighter than boys and to make boys feel inferior to girls.

Answer 8

I agee with Don Juan.

Answer 9

you gotta be freakin kidding me lol...where i live is the other way around.

So there's this physics honors class right...and theres only one girl...for us 30 guys...i mean its like come on....