Is there a boy crisis in education?
In the last three decades, a call of alarm has sounded claiming a boy crisis in education (cf. Dutro, 2002; Watson, Kehler, & Martino, 2010). This “war against boys,” as popular press author Hoff-Sommers terms it, is rooted in the war of the sexes. While there are test scores to back Hoff-Sommers’s points, the research is taken out of context. I want to specifically examine sex differences in literacy to prove that there is not a boy crisis and to sound a call to action to stop the war of the sexes in education.
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; OECD, 2013) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2011, 2014) are two of the biggest assessments in education and both tests show a gender gap in literacy across grade-levels and across countries. In research study after research study, we see girls’ average as higher than boys’ average in reading tests (Robinson & Lubienski, 2011). However, there is more disparity within each gender than there is between the genders. There are more boys at the bottom of the test score distribution in tests such as PISA and NAEP but there are also more boys in the top (Cole, 1997). That means that being a girl does not mean that you will be a good reader any more than being a boy means that you will be a poor reader. Also, there are research studies that show no difference in boys’ and girls’ reading scores. This means that reading ability is not innate to gender; it is not genetic (Clinton et al., 2012; Watson, Kehler, & Martino, 2010). Something else may be going on.
I believe this something else is gender stereotyping. In other words, relating reading to students’ socially constructed gender identities (Clinton et al., 2012; McGeown, 2015). Boys are supposed to be active and rambunctious. Girls are supposed to be quiet and reserved. Since reading is a quiet activity, it is considered feminine. Some of you may think that notion is outdated. Afterall, we have girl friends who roller derby and women in the Citadel. We all know some girls that are active and competitive and some that are quiet and reserved. However, our ideas of what it means to be a model woman or a model man haven’t evolved as quickly. Go down any toy store aisle and you will see our society’s traditional stereotypes of the sexes still alive and well. These stereotypes do not serve our boys well when it comes to literacy learning.
Literacy researchers have suggested that literacy learning is complex (Peterson, 2006). This complexity is illustrated through the important role that literacy plays in the development of individual and social identities (Watson, Kehler, & Martino, 2010). What one reads and how one reads impacts one’s sense of self. In a similar way, whether one chooses to read and what one chooses to read are expressions of one’s identity. More specifically, Goldberg and Roswell (2002) asserted, “When reading and writing, children are operating out of gender identities, and they are also using the occasion of reading or writing to construct or negotiate those identities in some way” (p. 7). Thus, recent work that has centered on the development of basic literacy skills may not adequately address critical social factors that would enhance boys’ literacy development.
Test scores only tell us part of the story. While more girls may be passing NAEP and PISA reading tests, girls are not performing at higher levels on all standardized tests. Boys consistently score higher on AP exams than girls, even in English (NAEP, 2003). Sadker, Sadker & Zittleman (2009) among others report on research that shows inequities in instruction for girls. Included in their report is how even good teachers call on boys, choose class materials that relate to boys, and challenge boys more often than girls. If we really want to know if schools are shortchanging boys, then we need to look in depth at what happens in school. When we make data-driven decisions, we need to remember that qualitative studies share empirical data too. We need to look at research, such as Sadker, Sadker, & Zittleman, that looks in depth at what is happening in schools.
We also need to look at the outcomes of schooling to see the whole story (Weaver-Hightower, 2003). As described above, gender stereotypes may serve some girls well in school, but they do not serve them well after school. Contemporary research has looked at economic and social outcomes based on gender. Fleming (2000) reported that wage gaps between men and women persist, poverty continues to disproportionately affect women and children, and domestic and sexual assault leaves women as victims more often.
In all, the vast majority of boys and girls are succeeding well-enough in school to move on to fulfilling lives because there is no innate difference in boys’ and girls’ abilities to read, write, or perform any other school task. This is not to say that all boys and all girls do succeed. One of the solutions to boys’ and girls’ underachievement is the responsibility of all of us, whether we are teachers, parents, neighbors, employers, coaches, or friends. We must stop the pitting of the sexes against each other. If we stop looking at gender as binary, or dualistic, then we can see that we all possess both feminine traits and masculine traits along a continuum. And if we all possess them, then maybe they aren’t masculine or feminine but just human traits after all.
References
Clinton, V., Seipel, B., Broek, P., McMaster, K. L., Kendeou, P., Carlson, S. E., & Rapp, D. N. (2012). Gender differences in inference generation by fourth-grade students. Journal of Research in Reading, 37(4), 356–374.
Cole, N. S. (1997). The ETS gender study: How females and males perform in educational settings. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.
Dutro, E. (2002). “Us boys like to read football and boy stuff”: Reading masculinities, performing boyhood. Journal of Literacy Research, 34(4), 465–500.
Fleming, P. M. (2000). Three decades of educational progress (and continuing barriers) for women and girls. Equity & Excellence in Education,33(1), 74–79.
Hoff-Sommers, C. (2000). The war against boys: How misguided feminism is hurting our young men. New York: Simon and Schuster.
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2014). Nation’s report card 2013. Retrieved from http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_g12_2013/#/changes-in-gaps
OECD. 2013. PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do — Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264201118-en.
Peterson, S. (2006). Influence of gender on writing development. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald, (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (311–323). New York: Guilford.
Robinson, J. P. & Lubienski, S. T. (2011). The development of gender achievement gaps in mathematics and reading during elementary and middle school: Examining direct cognitive assessments and teacher ratings. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 268–302.
Sadker, D., Sadker, M. & Zittleman, K. R. (2009). Still failing at fairness: How gender bias cheats girls and boys in school and what we can do about it. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Thomas, D. E. & Stevenson, H. (2009). Gender risks and education: The particular classroom challenges for urban low-income African American boys. Review of Research in Education, 33(1), 160–180.
Watson, A., Kehler, M., & Martino, W. (2010). The problem of boys’ literacy underachievement: Raising some questions. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(5), 356–361.
Weaver-Hightower, M. (2003). The “Boy Turn” in Research on Gender and Education. Review of Educational Research, 73 (4), 471–498.
