Gender

Gender and School Success

Competency in school can be attributed to intrinsic (e.g., innate ability, self-concept) and external influences (e.g., experiences, peers, parental and teacher expectations). Some apparently innate differences in ability were reported by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin in their 1974 classic work, The Psychology of Sex Differences, including that girls have higher verbal abilities, while boys surpass them in quantitative and spatial reasoning. However, more recent research has found smaller and fewer gender differences and greater differences in ability within each gender than between genders. Researchers now believe that culture, as well as biology, plays a crucial role in how well children succeed in school.

Gender role refers to social expectations regarding how males and females should behave. Parents, teachers, peers, media, and the school curriculum transmit these expectations to children. Boys are encouraged to explore and take things apart, tasks that are prerequisites for science and spatial knowledge. Math and computers are often considered male domains by boys, teachers, and parents. While more girls are now taking higher-level math courses, females still obtain less than 25% of college degrees in math, engineering, and computer science. Girls exhibit desired school behavior (e.g., neatness, compliance) and obtain higher grades throughout school, but without encouragement from teachers and parents many talented young women are reticent to compete in fields where they are a minority. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has numerous studies and programs that focus on enhancing education and raising goals for female students.

In their book, Failing at Fairness, Myra and David Saedker report boys receive more teacher attention for negative, positive, or even no behavior. Teachers were found to ask boys more questions. Teachers showed boys how to do things; they did them for girls. Teachers waited for boys to respond, implying that boys were capable of giving the correct response. Conversely, teachers often ignored girls or moved on when they did not answer quickly. Minority girls tended to be ignored more by teachers than white females. Girls were praised for the appearance of their work and failure attributed to low ability, while feedback to boys indicated failure was because of lack of effort or task difficulty. These messages of confidence/no confidence are received and internalized by students. By the time they reach upper elementary grades, boys tend to overestimate their academic competencies while girls underestimate theirs. As a result, boys are more likely to persevere, and many girls tend to stop trying.

...