Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lots of theories:
1) girls overall have better high school GPAs
2) women's lib, girls today are going to college to get an education and not a husband
3) guys aren't doing as well in today's school environment due to the feminization of education (that's another argument but the advent of high stakes testing earlier has made sitting still a priority and girls are better at that. Guys are disciplined more harshly, more frequently and are diagnosed with learning disablities at a vastly higher rate than girls)
4) guys are still very much hands on learners (kinesthetic) and the various tech/trade schools are making a push for them at the same time many public schools have cut or eliminated traditional vocational survey classes and diploma tracks
Add to the above that boys and girls learn different things at different times and rates and in differing ways and that today's student is expected to enter kindergarten with the skills that used to be expected of an exiting first grader and you start to have the very beginning of an answer.
I think another factor is that guys, right out of high school, often possess the tools necessary to go right into an industrial job, with a fairly decent chance of moving up the ladder or get high wages without formal education. Much less so, the opportunity for a girl to get any other job than waitress or store clerk, at minimum wage with almost no upward mobility. So career choices for girls all demand college education, whereas boys can make a lot of money without it. Nobody (except Johns) will pay a young uneducated woman the heavy-lifting money that flows out of oil rigs or crab boats or high steel.
I think there may be a variety of reasons. Some of it is just demographics. At birth there are more males than females. With every age from newborn forward, males die at a greater rate than females. The sexes even out around the late teens and afterward there are increasingly more females to males. I read not too long ago that the age of the average college student in the U.S. was 26. Obviously there are many older students and the majority of those are bound to be female. Still the this would seem to give only a 52/48 split or near there.
Statistically most crimes are committed by young males. Assuming the incarceration rate to be roughly equivalent and given the large prison population in the U.S. this may account for some of the difference.
Perhaps, in a normal economy, there are more entry level, non-college jobs (military, construction, factory, fisheries, etc.) that would appeal to males more so than females.
Maybe more women feel the need to go to, or return to, college in order to advance their careers. I have known of many men that have no, or only some, college that took an entry level job and have worked their way up in the company. As wrong as it may be, few women would be able to do that especially in the past. Unfortunately a woman just has to work harder to advance the same distance.
Lastly, and I realize this is a generalization and perhaps stereotyping but it has always struck me that women tend to put more value on education than men do. Conversely men seem to put more value on experience. Vive la difference.
Lots of theories:
1) girls overall have better high school GPAs
2) women's lib, girls today are going to college to get an education and not a husband
3) guys aren't doing as well in today's school environment due to the feminization of education (that's another argument but the advent of high stakes testing earlier has made sitting still a priority and girls are better at that. Guys are disciplined more harshly, more frequently and are diagnosed with learning disablities at a vastly higher rate than girls)
4) guys are still very much hands on learners (kinesthetic) and the various tech/trade schools are making a push for them at the same time many public schools have cut or eliminated traditional vocational survey classes and diploma tracks
Add to the above that boys and girls learn different things at different times and rates and in differing ways and that today's student is expected to enter kindergarten with the skills that used to be expected of an exiting first grader and you start to have the very beginning of an answer.
That's a start.
I agree 100%. (Except with the feminization). That has everything to do with the testing.
In fact, I would like to add something here. That standardized testing is deliberately set up for schools to fail which allows the education system to be privatized. These wheels were set in motion under Reagan.
However, all arguments that we see either blame the teachers or the parents. The focus is never on the testing or what the ultimate goals (privatization) are. The testing has hurt the boys far more then people realize-I think. As a society we need to drop the testing and start seriously looking at gender specific schools.
The male and female reading gap is much bigger in high school then earlier grades. Part of the reason may be because they spend their entire time preparing for a test. They aren't really learning anything. They aren't engaged and have no motivation and no interest.
One of the books that I read discusses that boys are diagnosed with ADhD or given medication (by pediatricians) and that once the medication is stopped their brains look exactly like a crack addicts. I am trying to remember, I think that he said that they may not have been showing any severe signs before but most definitely will after the medications are gone.
I have to say, the number one major problem that I see is that damned testing. And the end result is that they aren't entering universities.
More women go to college than men because more men are interested in going out in the real world and making some money. Women want to remain in the warm, fuzzy, secure cloak of academia, supplied by daddy's money, for as long as they can. Or until they get their MRS. degree.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
