https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/10/pgag316/8907486
The higher the socioeconomic development of a country, the greater the gender gap tended to be.
Girls generally get more education than boys in most parts of the world today. Women make up the majority of college and university students across most of the United States, Europe, and many other nations. For instance, nearly half of U.S. women aged 25 to 34 hold a bachelor’s degree, compared to about 37% of men. In 1995, college degree attainment for men and women aged 25 to 34 was tied at 25%. Since then, women’s completion rates have grown much faster, and the gender gap appears to continue widening.
I’ve seen it theorized before that different peer, parental, and other adult attitudes are a large factor in this sort of gender disparity. Like, attitudes such as “boys will be boys” that are more likely to excuse not doing their reasonable best in school, and conceptions of developing masculinity inconsistent with valuing spending time doing academicky things.
And in fact, there is a section of this paper that assembles evidence supporting that thesis, titled, “Gender differences in attitudes toward academic effort are associated with gender gaps in ability beliefs and gender stereotypes.”
Ultimately their recommendation is:
Addressing differences in attitudes may be a key to advancing educational equity for both genders. The main policy implication emerging from our findings is the need to foster more positive attitudes toward academic effort among boys, particularly in economically developed countries. Our analysis suggests that promoting a growth mindset and emphasizing that success for both girls and boys is achieved through learning and effort could help address the “boys’ crisis” and foster greater gender equality in education. Gender norms, which often discourage boys from engaging academically due to traditional expectations of masculinity, must be challenged. Interventions should specifically target encouraging boys to participate in fields where they are underrepresented, such as the humanities, and role models who defy traditional gender roles—both in terms of attitudes toward academic effort and areas of study—could inspire boys, challenge stereotypes, and contribute to a more inclusive education system.
As a parent of a boy, and also an adult who sometimes interacts with other boys, I do try to keep these things in mind, both in what I say myself and also when it comes to suggesting who might count as a worthy role model. But of course you only have so much influence as a parent.
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Actually, I think we parents have an oversize influence as what we model at home is particularly sticky over time, but I do agree that role models, wherever we find them, are important. I often think, “where are our heroes today?” because pointing our children to those examples and emphasizing what we admire about them is also an important lesson to teach.
We, too, saw a disappointing attitude toward academics when our son was growing up even though we lived in what was considered the best school district in the state at the time. He was bullied, in part, because he often wanted to talk about something he learned in school that day, some interesting idea, instead of play football. That never went over well. I’ll never forget the day, around 6th grade, when he sadly said, “I just want to be with kids like me,” and that was twenty years ago.
I do blame a lot of this on the substitute role modeling of social media; it has an outsize megaphone shouting over the values we try to instill with messages that so often don’t promote integrity and achievement.
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In the early years, a lot of what is required of students is better aligned with female development (sitting still, fine motor activities), and boys who struggle with this develop feelings about themselves and school that would deemphasize academic performance. This is part of the rationale for single sex schools.
It’d be interesting to sift through the results based on universal availability of education, cultural attitudes, what is emphasized when, gender segregation in education, etc.
Is it possible that in less developed countries, those underperformers, which may be disproportionately male, just aren’t in the count? Sounds like something that would be corrected for.
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That is heartbreaking. I feel fortunate that for the most part, my kids’ friends groups have liked school and learning. Still I saw my son feel pressure change himself to fit in with other boys in primary school because the only two recess options approved by the other boys seemed to be football and light-sabers while he was more interested in different games. At the same time, it has been interesting to observe the balance that he eventually achieved as he grew older, a balance that allowed him to both fit in with his peers and also remain true to himself. It took awhile to get there though, and I think that he was lucky because he is quite socially savvy so he did a lot of deliberate code-switching as he navigated social pressures.
Anyway, I still wanted to add that while it is disturbing that overall “boys value academic effort less than girls,” there is a positive flip side for the boys that I’ve observed in my kids’ social circles. While still being academic achievers, most of the boys seem less perfectionistic, less obsessive about teacher-pleasing, and a little more willing to say “good enough” when completing assignments even if they haven’t dotted every i or crossed every t (obviously, I am generalizing here because they have friends who don’t fit these categories). And I actually think it is healthy that my son can be assigned 50 pages of a history text for homework and realize that he cannot read every word in depth if he wants to get enough sleep while at least one of my girls cannot go to bed until she has read every single line even if it means that she is up until 3 AM. Similarly, I appreciate that he does not think getting a 92 on a test is a personal failing while I know some girls who seem devastated by that same score. I like that my son is willing to be more strategic in choosing what to do and what not to do while I know many girls who try to do everything perfectly at all times. Of course my son is also the kid who will hand things in at the very last minute (which I don’t think is a great habit) while his sisters are more likely to hand in their work a few days before it is due. So his approach is certainly not perfect and comes with its own stresses!
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This so resonates with our experience with DS. In middle school, his teacher noted that he was probably one of the strongest math students in the grade but that he didn’t play around with the numbers or do anything extra. “He just does his homework problems and then is done”, his teacher said. When I relayed this to him, the response was “That’s the whole point of homework problems. Getting them done.”
He had a point! And I could see how this could appear far less invested in academics. He also was never a “pleaser”, which was a trait, at least through MS, associated primarily with girls.
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