Does the school system benefit girls more than boys?

Girls outperform boys across all subjects, in all age groups, and across all racial groups. They secure more university places and suffer fewer disciplinary problems. By contrast, boys are overrepresented in programs for students with special educational needs and account for around 93% of suspensions and disciplinary actions. Is the modern school system designed to benefit girls more than boys?

Yes, it does

As schools have evolved, they have incorporated learning techniques and disciplinary practices that appeal to the ways female students learn and reward their strengths.

Discovery learning

Modern teaching methods that encourage children to learn through discovery appeal to the ways girls interact with the world.

Girls experience soft discipline while boys get intense discipline

Boys and girls are have biases associated to them because of their behavioral differences. In school, the differences are even more pronounced because of the presence of adults being hands on. Because of the differences, parents and teachers often give preferential treatment.

Reduced competition

As healthy competition has been removed from schools, boys' academic performance has deteriorated.

More female teachers

Teachers, particularly at the primary and elementary level, are predominantly female. This robs boys of role models in the classroom and hinders academic development.

The war on boys' interests

Traditionally female past times, like socializing and being creative, are encouraged and rewarded in schools while traditionally male interests, like roughousing, are punished.

No, it doesn't

The school system does not benefit girls more than boys. Boys are slower to mature, they also perform better in tests, which is a significant component of schooling. The parts of schooling that damage male learning are not attributable to the system, but to the teachers working within the system.

Slower to mature

Boys develop non-cognitive skills slower than girls. It is not the school system that lets boys down, but their biological development.

Teachers not the system

Teachers often let behaviour influence their grading patterns. This is what leads to male underperformance.

Unhappy school days

Girls have an unhappier school experience. The system does not benefit girls, it makes them miserable.

Testing vs classroom

Girls excel in the classroom, while boys excel in the exam hall. The system does not disproportionally benefit one sex, but one sex excels in some aspects while the other sex excels in other aspects.

Skewed stats

Less selective education has led to skewed statistics on male academic performance. This has led many to wrongly conclude that females are outperforming males and the school system favours female learners.

Toxic masculinity

Boys are underperforming in school because of the types of behaviour society encourages them to exhibit, not through any flaw or design in the school system.

Who cares?

Any system will always disproportionately benefit one demographic. There will always be one group that does better. It may as well be girls.

Someone has to benefit

Any educational model will always benefit one demographic more than another.

A school's function is to impart knowledge

The school is designed to impart knowledge in the most efficient way. If girls are better at absorbing that knowledge, then so be it.
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This page was last edited on Wednesday, 4 Sep 2019 at 11:32 UTC