SAT Results – Boys & Girls are Different!

4 Responses to SAT Results – Boys & Girls are Different!

1. Chris says:

   Monday, December 13, 2010 at 6:50 pm

   You’re using the fact that boys are scoring better on standardized math tests in order to argue that society has been neglecting boys in favor of girls, and that “the toll it’s taken on the well being and success of males in our population has been great.”

   How do you not see the problem here?

   Tina: “It’s long past time to put some balance back into our social and educational focus.”

   Yeah, nothing says “balance” like telling girls that boys are better at math!

   Reply
2. Tina says:

   Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:43 pm

   Chris: “nothing says “balance” like telling girls that boys are better at math!”

   So you’re saying girls can’t handle the truth and it’s better to lie and tell them they are equal or better when they cleary are not? Then when they fail to make the grade what do you tell them? (Oh I remember now…you just lower the standard so they won’t get their feelings hurt…we’ve also been doing that for a few decades and our educational standing in the world shows it!)

   Come on Chris, this is part of a much bigger problem…we’ve been lying about the differences for at least forty years now and changing to accomodate too! The feminist push to prove boys and girls are exactly the same is all about lies! Frankly I find it strange that some women can’t abide the fact that men could be better at some things than are women…it’s just silly.

   My suggestion for balance springs from an observation. In our fervor to promote the esteem of girls we have also, inadvertantly or purposefully, been relegating boys to second class citizen status. When women are saying that men are irrelevant (or expendable) I’d say my analysis is right on…something is definitely out of whack. Boys are receiving a terrible message.

   Promotion by gender is, in part, responsible for the fact that fewer males attend college. What’s worse is that a great many more end up in jail or in gangs, on drugs, or just shiftless…and too many of these fail to take seriously their financial and parenting responsibilities for the children they produce.

   Our society needs to wake up on this issue…the post was designed to generate discussion. It was not meant as a thorough dissertation on the subject.

   Thanks for responding, albeit just to make a snide remark…this is becoming a habit with the left!

   Reply
3. Chris says:

   Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 10:05 am

   Tina, I replied with a snide remark because your post wasn’t well thought out enough to merit anything more.

   You brought up standardized test scores in order to make two completely unfounded assertions: that the scores point to innate biological differences between boys and girls, rather than social differences; and that the school system has been privileging girls over boys. Neither claim logically follows from the evidence you presented. The second claim comes closer to being contradicted by the evidence.

   Perhaps if you provide stronger evidence for your outlandish and offensive claims, then there will be a discussion here worth having. But right now this article doesn’t even meet your usual standards.

   Reply
4. Tina says:

   Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 4:16 pm

   Chris: “I replied with a snide remark because your post wasn’t well thought out enough to merit anything more.”

   Hmmm…I feel a strong obligation to this blog. Since this is a very busy time of year I do try to post something, no matter how insufficient it may be, whenever I can so that those who check in have something to discuss, with or without my participation.

   When you first began to participate here I welcomed your input because your remarks added another perspective and helped to spark conversation…which is the point of the blog.

   Now you seem to be focused on being petty (or snide) at every opportunity. What’s up?

   “You brought up standardized test scores in order to make two completely unfounded assertions: that the scores point to innate biological differences between boys and girls, rather than social differences; and that the school system has been privileging girls over boys.”

   Completely unfounded? Says who? You? Sorry but your opinion that my assertions are unfounded isn’t any more “founded” than is my assertion. This is the information age and Post Scripts isnt the only game in town. You do have the opportunity to expand on these assertions or assert the opposite at will. I’m certain that if you did it would inspire further comment from our readers…which is, once again, the point of participating here. If you didnt care to that would be OK too.

   Perhaps if you provide stronger evidence for your outlandish and offensive claims

   Offensive and outlandish? Says who? You?

   Perhaps if you didnt have such a knee jerk, biased, assumptive reaction you would look to see whether my assertions had any validity at all before commenting.

   Evidence of biological differences, boys and girls:

   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303120346.htm

   ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) Although researchers have long agreed that girls have superior language abilities than boys, until now no one has clearly provided a biological basis that may account for their differences.

   For the first time — and in unambiguous findings — researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa show both that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks.

   “Our findings — which suggest that language processing is more sensory in boys and more abstract in girls — could have major implications for teaching children and even provide support for advocates of single sex classrooms,” said Douglas D. Burman, research associate in Northwestern’s Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

   Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers measured brain activity in 31 boys and in 31 girls aged 9 to 15 as they performed spelling and writing language tasks.

   http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html

   aside from external anatomical and primary and secondary sexual differences, scientists know also that there are many other subtle differences in the way the brains from men and women process language, information, emotion, cognition, etc.

   One of the most interesting differences appear in the way men and women estimate time, judge speed of things, carry out mental mathematical calculations, orient in space and visualize objects in three dimensions, etc. In all these tasks, women and men are strikingly different, as they are too in the way their brains process language. This may account, scientists say, for the fact that there are many more male mathematicians, airplane pilots, bush guides, mechanical engineers, architects and race car drivers than female ones.

   On the other hand, women are better than men in human relations, recognizing emotional overtones in others and in language, emotional and artistic expressiveness, esthetic appreciation, verbal language and carrying out detailed and pre-planned tasks. For example, women generally can recall lists of words or paragraphs of text better than men (13).

   The “father” of sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard University (10), said that human females tend to be higher than males in empathy, verbal skills, social skills and security-seeking, among other things, while men tend to be higher in independence, dominance, spatial and mathematical skills, rank-related aggression, and other characteristics.

   When all these investigations began, scientists were skeptical about the role of genes and of biological differences, because cultural learning is very powerful and influential among humans. Are girls more prone to play with dolls and cooperate among themselves than boys, because they are taught to be so by parents, teachers and social peers, or is it the reverse order?

   However, gender differences are already apparent from just a few months after birth, when social influence is still small. For example, Anne Moir and David Jessel, in their remarkable and controversial book “Brain Sex” (11), offer explanations for these very early differences in children: “These discernible, measurable differences in behaviour have been imprinted long before external influences have had a chance to get to work. They reflect a basic difference in the newborn brain which we already know about — the superior male efficiency in spatial ability, the greater female skill in speech.”

   But now, after many careful controlled studies where environment and social learning were ruled out, scientists learned that there may exist a great deal of neurophysiological and anatomical differences between the brains of males and females.

   School system privileging girls over boys:

   http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/the-war-against-boys/4659/

   This we think we know: American schools favor boys and grind down girls. The truth is the very opposite. By virtually every measure, girls are thriving in school; it is boys who are the second sex

   By Christina Hoff Sommers

   The research commonly cited to support claims of male privilege and male sinfulness is riddled with errors. Almost none of it has been published in peer-reviewed professional journals. Some of the data turn out to be mysteriously missing. A review of the facts shows boys, not girls, on the weak side of an education gender gap. The typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing; he is less committed to school and less likely to go to college. In 1997 college full-time enrollments were 45 percent male and 55 percent female. The Department of Education predicts that the proportion of boys in college classes will continue to shrink.

   Data from the U.S. Department of Education and from several recent university studies show that far from being shy and demoralized, today’s girls outshine boys. They get better grades. They have higher educational aspirations. They follow more-rigorous academic programs and participate in advanced-placement classes at higher rates. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, slightly more girls than boys enroll in high-level math and science courses. Girls, allegedly timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs. Only in sports are boys ahead, and women’s groups are targeting the sports gap with a vengeance. Girls read more books. They outperform boys on tests for artistic and musical ability. More girls than boys study abroad. More join the Peace Corps. At the same time, more boys than girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as likely to receive a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. More boys than girls are involved in crime, alcohol, and drugs. Girls attempt suicide more often than boys, but it is boys who more often succeed. In 1997, a typical year, 4,483 young people aged five to twenty-four committed suicide: 701 females and 3,782 males.

   In the technical language of education experts, girls are academically more “engaged.” Last year an article in The CQ Researcher about male and female academic achievement described a common parental observation: “Daughters want to please their teachers by spending extra time on projects, doing extra credit, making homework as neat as possible. Sons rush through homework assignments and run outside to play, unconcerned about how the teacher will regard the sloppy work.”

   School engagement is a critical measure of student success. The U.S. Department of Education gauges student commitment by the following criteria: “How much time do students devote to homework each night?”and “Do students come to class prepared and ready to learn? (Do they bring books and pencils? Have they completed their homework?)”According to surveys of fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders, girls consistently do more homework than boys. By the twelfth grade boys are four times as likely as girls not to do homework. Similarly, more boys than girls report that they “usually” or “often” come to school without supplies or without having done their homework.

   The performance gap between boys and girls in high school leads directly to the growing gap between male and female admissions to college. The Department of Education reports that in 1996 there were 8.4 million women but only 6.7 million men enrolled in college. It predicts that women will hold on to and increase their lead well into the next decade, and that by 2007 the numbers will be 9.2 million women and 6.9 million men.

   http://education-portal.com/articles/Leaving_Men_Behind%3A_Women_Go_to_College_in_Ever-Greater_Numbers.html

   Leaving Men Behind: Women Go to College in Ever-Greater Numbers

   Nov 13, 2007 – In the last three decades, women have come to form a solid majority of America’s college student population. This is great news, but many others think this progress comes at the expense of college-age men, whose rates of postsecondary school attendance have stagnated. Read here to learn more.

   The Pendulum Swings: Female Students Make Dramatic Gains Since 1970s

   A generation ago, it was expected that most middle-class boys would go on to college after high school and land high-paying, white-collar jobs after that. Women were presumed to be headed for a life of homemaking or low-paid administrative or service labor.

   But then things changed. More and more women began to go to college. By the 1980s, the majority of new freshman each year were females, and since then the gender gap has only grown. Between 1970 and 2000, the overall number of women enrolled in postsecondary institutions grew by 136%, while their numbers in professional school grew by a whopping 853%.

   This growth, combined with the relative stagnation in the rates of enrollment for men, has led to imbalances in college gender ratios across the nation. In 2004, 9.9 million women were attending the nation’s accredited postsecondary schools, compared to only 7.4 million men.

   Chris I asked for balance. Balance means promoting and aprreciating both males and females. In fact my sense is to forget about gender all together and focus on individual students.

   “…right now this article doesn’t even meet your usual standards.”

   I guess I should count myself fortunate to have rated even a single star on that scale of performance you are so intent on wielding.

   Back to the Christmas cards!

   Reply