| By Matt Zeitlin - May 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
In response to the study done by the Association of University Women detailing the lack of a boys crisis in education, many have pointed two possible methodological flaws. One, the group doing the research is self-interested - in 1992, they did a study decrying the state of girls in public education, and it's impossible to imagine them publishing research saying that there is a boy crisis. The second line of criticism is that the study focuses on high school testing and other federally recognized measures of achievement as opposed to more "meaningful" metrics like GPAs and bachelor degrees awarded.
The first criticism could be important, if less obviously self-interested parties hadn't come to virtually identical conclusions. But Sara Mead, in a paper for Education Sector, reached much the same conclusions. So let's just deal with the second criticism, that the AAUW and Mead are using the wrong metrics. The main point that Mead makes in her paper is that both boys and girls are improving their academic achievement, it's just that girls are doing so faster. In math and reading, boys - especially younger ones - have either been holding steady since the 1970s, or have actually improved (on math especially).
And even though much boy crisis rhetoric is framed as a relative decline to girls, the fact that there's no evidence of a real decline in absolute measures like test scores certainly takes out the dire urgency that many boy crisis believers have. And even when you compare boys and girls, Mead concludes that "there has been no radical or recent decline in boys' performance relative to girls. Nor is there a clear overall trend—boys score higher in some areas, girls in others." And in so much as there is stagnation in achievement, it occurs at around 17 ( the oldest age the NAEP tests at) for both genders. So it's not that high schools have to be fixed for boys, it's for both genders.
But what Ronald Bailey and others point out is that perhaps we should look at GPAs, drop out rates and college performance instead of high school academic achievement, the gap emerges. But when it comes to college enrollment, we see that men have been going to college more, just at slower rates than women. When two groups are improving, and one is doing so faster, the proportions are always going to change. And when it comes to graduate degrees - which are a good indicator of educational and occupational achievement and status - women get less than half of the professional and doctorate degrees.
Basically, the data is muddled as to how real or important any educational gender gaps are. What we do know is that there are very real gaps when it comes to women's earnings in the workplace as well as real educational achievement gaps based on race and class. Those should be the disparities that we focus on, not the phantom of a boy crisis.
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Think about how these two sentences sound:
1. "The educational gap is growing between boys and girls with boys falling behind."
2. "Boys are girls are achieving better scores than ever before."
After reading those two sentences, which does the following from your second link sound like:
"But the truth is far different from what these accounts suggest. The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better."
Your "less obviously self-interested" article is still blatantly biased. It's stating an argument. The use of the second style of sentence is to minimize and ignore the differences in the education of boys to support the article thesis. If they acknowledged a real gap that had to be addressed, it would be in conflict with their final conclusions.
Here's an example (with made up numbers)
In 1970, women made $10000/year and men made $20000/year. In 2008, women made $25000/year and men are making $100k/year. Should the news be how much the men are now earning? Or the fact that women hadn't kept pace with the salaries of men? If your "less obviously self-interested" article would analyze the situation they might say:
"But the truth is far different from what these accounts suggest. The real story is not bad news about women making only 25% of what men make even though they used to make 50%; it's actually good news about men doing better than ever before."
Until the rates of enrollment in college and GPA are equal or at least the gap understood, I think it's fair to say there is a boy crisis. It's a crisis for anyone interested in equality. It's a crisis for anyone interested in understanding inherent biases in society.
"What we do know is that there are very real gaps when it comes to women's earnings in the workplace..."
Which is this earnings gap that you speak of? The 5% that the AAUW can't account for and assumed to be sexist discrimination?