Great article about the context of boys failing in education

As highly educated professionals, they think strategically. If academia would not fit with the lives they want to have, they have less incentive to consider PhDs

Holey - these PhDs were a bit young for children. Mid 20ish and as professional women are having children later that does not seem to fit.

What you said about academic careers after PhD is very true though.

There was a TED talk by the CEO of facebook recently and she emphasised how women tend to think about starting a family and position themselves for that some years in advance. It becomes pretty obvious to any postgraduate student that, due to the long hours culture, combining academia with a young family will be hard - and that the system will also penalise them for taking maternity leave. The same applies to other jobs with long hours cultures (how many women aspire to be traders?).

If you are feeling broody at 23, the endless uncertainty of finding a few postdocs here and there is unapealling. Even if you know you are not ready to start a family, other career paths can mean you can see yourself as reaching that positon within a couple of years.

There is a huge amount of luck involved in academic success. Citations breed citations and once your name becomes known, you are cited more. If you have a family in mind, and I think women tend to think this way at an earlier age, it might be too much of a gamble.

I know that's what they say Holey - but I was 25 when I finished my PhD - plenty of time (if I had wanted) to go on to do a few postdocs, get a junior lectureship and then start a family. My two friends, indeed, DID this and both lecture at top notch unis. But they are the only two women they know in that situation. I never satisfactorily got to the bottom of why. My DH says men are more ambitious for the success...

"...that's where the inequalities begin MoreBeta, even less women go onto postdocs and less go on to lecture, less to professor etc. No one seems sure why."

Er, could it be that women start having babies at just the age they need to work long hours and relocate frequently to advance an academic career? Even if they get maternity pay, they fall behind in terms of publications and it is publish or perish.

I taught a top set GCSE class once and half the boys were off for half the lesson time each week to do a GNVQ in car maintenance or some such shit. They underachieved in science as a result.

that made me smile esp. `some such shit'

A variation on the imposter syndrome maybe BFG. It wouldn't be surprising seeing as that level of education has traditionally been the preserve of men and that women generally show less confidence in their academic abilities than men.

Yeah, I seem to remember that's where the inequalities begin MoreBeta, even less women go onto postdocs and less go on to lecture, less to professor etc. No one seems sure why.

You've just reminded me though that at the start of my PhD lots of girls were having terrible troubles coming to grips with it (including me) forever complaining we were not 'good enough'. The first year is also the big drop out year for doctorates. The boys never complained and we struggled to explain our fears to them.

I went to a graduation ceremony yesterday at a very highly regarded university.

The number of male and female graduands from undergraduate degree courses seemed about equal as did the distribution of graduands with 'Firsts'.

However, when it came to PhD/DPhil students graduating it seemed only about 25% were women. Not sure what causes that. It was very noticeable though and we are talking about social sciences here so not typical male subjects like engineering.

'boys can't sit down for five minutes' stuff is utter nonsense - hear hear! Funny how the recent obession with 'learning styles' fits neatly into stereotyping boys as active, 'kinetic' learners.

I taught a top set GCSE class once and half the boys were off for half the lesson time each week to do a GNVQ in car maintenance or some such shit. They underachieved in science as a result.

But I don't think you can entirely blame MrsT for 'dollar is king' culture Fowl, we live in a capitalist society.

Fowl, yes, DS has made many comments along the lines of "school is for girls", and is often teased by other boys for his talent in science. Very sad.

It is also mixed with quite a bit of resentment that boys tend to be lumped together for the sins of a few disruptive ones. A minor issue but I do think the tendency of teachers to use the terms "boys" or "girls" to address them collectively should be avoided so children would see themselves more as individuals in this very gender segregated society.

The thing that gets me about the 'boys educational failure' argument is that people who say the system is set up for girls & favours them seem to neglect an important fact - the system was set up exclusively for boys! Initially only boys were entitled to education and only men could teach. It's not that long ago that women were forced to leave the teaching profession when they got married.

All this 'boys can't sit down for five minutes' stuff is utter nonsense, they could and did 100 years ago, they can and do at Eton and Harrow.

The real problem is that society as a whole undervalues academic success and achievement and has started to view education and teaching as a 'female' thing (and therefore of course worthless ). We value wealth not work. And if you want to know whose fault that is, well Mrs Thatcher's of course - but that's another thread

Yes BFG, anecdotally also I remember a few times when girls would complain that attention was being given to disruptive boys who stopped the girls getting on with their work. I did wonder if classes should be single sex until I realised that it was always just a handful of boys (sometimes but not often girls) causing the disruption and that those boys who were neither super naughty nor super bright were losing out just as much as the girls.

I'm also unconvinced that the gender of the teacher makes a difference as I've seen a couple of male teachers unable to impose discipline, it has more to do with personality. That's not to say more male teachers isn't a good thing though.

I think investing more powers in teachers to enable them to exclude unruly children would enable the children who do want to learn to do so. I do suspect that boys might rest on their laurels a little bit. As a child I was very much aware that I had to work harder than my brother. And DS doesn't translate his desire to be the many male occupations he sees on tv to any increased desire to work hard for it! But I am extrapolating somewhat there I realise ....

Analysing the results based on sex is the ONLY way to monitor any supposed sexism. In fact, the lowest achieving group of all is black boys - perhaps we should not monitor race either?

I'm not convinced that boys do worse because of a woman-bias in early schools but I was interested that the one of the proposed reasons boys do less well is because of an attitude of entitlement and superior confidence. I certainly felt this myself at school and observed it when I went back to teach - this rings true for me.

Anecdotally, they used to experiment with single sex classes in my old school - the teachers reported that the girl groups outstripped girls taught in mixed groups, but the behviour in the boy classes was verging on uncontrollable. So classes were remixed. I always thought it unfair that they preferred to accept lower achieving girls in favour of better behaved boys. But there...

oh yes you'reone of those new fangled feminists

The ones that sounds like they don't like or agree with feminism

messyisthenewtidy - spot on that when it's a `boy crisis' it gets the column inches.

No allowances should be made for behavure or otherwise at school based on the child being male or female. In fact I think they need to stop analysing the results based on sex it encourages it.

Hate it when my poor DS will only play on the Wii as a girl character when his friends are not here.. (digressing)

I'm not hostile to feminism, im a feminist and I still find it unhelpful. My opinion, please don't tell me what my position is.

In what way is it unhelpful to point out that the world is designed to systematically disadvantage women?

certainly it is unhelpful to people who are hostile to feminism, but it is quite helpful to people who are interested in feminism, to point out how uneven the playing field is.

I know the new style welcoming feminist section may not be comfortable with feminist analysis though.

Who's buying the stereotypical toys?

I like this article. Is is men who are creating all the pink toys for babies (am guessing girls?) that is creating a divide at such a young age? I suspect they are the ones in the companies trying to make the extra money since their wives are at home bringing up their children and suffering financially/careerwise for it.

Such a weird lot of male/female stuff in our society at the moment.

Maybe if boys had more effective education we could also teach them about women's rights...

Yeah Eclectic I probably am projecting a bit. No one on this thread has said that but if I had a dollar for every comment I've read in response to "boy crisis" articles that automatically assumes that girls successes are down to a biased system I'd be able to retire.

But you're right it shouldn't be about gender reductionism and it shouldn't descend into a battle of the sexes, it should be about individual kids.

That should say... Are not mutually exclusive.

I don't think anyone is blaming boys failure on girls success. Also it's not a "supposed" failure. It's a real problem. My point is it doesn't help women's equality by not helping boys. You can should do both. Boys failing at school and women not having equal rights are. It mutually exclusive.

What about girls needs being met though? All the hard work they do just to be resented for it. They are constantly receiving the message that if girls are succeeding then there must be something wrong with the system. Just because the majority of primary teachers are female doesn't mean they favour girls. Sometimes it is quite the opposite.

The years I spent in primary school education I saw lots of initiatives to engage boys but it was just assumed that girls would work hard. When books or films were chosen to be read/played it was rare to expect boys to sit through female centred fare but it was taken for granted that girls would listen to stories about boys.

Similarly little was done to expand topics such as the Greeks or Romans to include women's lives. I was once told not to use butterflies as an example of reflective symmetry because it would turn boys off (too Girly, see!)

So how about we appreciate how hard girls work and give credit where credit's due before we take it away from them and start blaming boys supposed failure on their success.