Boys inschool and society

John CresswellKen Rowe

Graeme Withers

Boys inschool and society

John CresswellKen Rowe

Graeme Withers

This publication is the result of research that forms partof a program supported by a grant to the AustralianCouncil for Educational Research by State, Territory andCommonwealth governments. The support provided bythese governments is gratefully acknowledged.

The views expressed in this publication are those of theauthors and not necessarily those of the State, Territoryand Commonwealth governments.

First published 2002 by the Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd19 Prospect Hill Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124 Australia.

Copyright © 2002 Australian Council for Educational Research

All rights reserved. Except as provided for by Australian copyright law, nopart of this book may be reproduced without written permission from thepublisher.

ISBN 0-86431-433-7

Printed in Australia by Courtney Colour Graphics Pty Ltd

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1

What this paper is about 2

Introduction 4

Literacy 5Pattern of development 5Longitudinal research 9The OECD Programme for International

Student Assessment – PISA 2000 10

Year 12 performance 12

Mathematics 14

Proficiency with computers 14

Educational participation 16Apparent retention rates for school education 16Age participation rates 17Subject participation 18Single sex or coeducation 18Post school destinations 19

Social development and outcomes 20Attitudes to society 20Juvenile crime 20Suicide 21

Implications and strategies 22

Conclusion 25

References 26

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Gender issues in education have been at the forefront of interest for parents,schools, education authorities andresearchers in recent years. In the pastdecade there has been a growingperception in Australia that girls havebecome more successful pursuing theireducational goals than boys. This hasbeen especially notable in educationaloutcomes relating to literacy and tomeasures of participation in varioussubject types and retention rates forstudents in the last years of secondaryeducation. There has also been arelationship noted between post-schooldestinations and successes of Australianstudents and their gender.

This situation emerged following anemphasis in the 1980s on the educationof girls and particularly encouraging girlsinto, what were then, non-traditionalareas such as the physical sciences,advanced level mathematics andtechnology subjects. More recently, the concern for boys’ education anddevelopment was raised because theywere over represented in areas such as remedial education and had higherlevels of behavioural problems, while atthe same time being under representedin the study of subjects such as fine arts,foreign languages and literature. Theexpression, “but what about the boys?”became common in schools amongstthose aware of the problem.

This paper arises from aspects of theACER research program developed inresponse to a request from theMinisterial Council on Education,Employment, Training and Youth Affairs(MCEETYA). The paper draws upon arange of ACER and other Australianresearch.

The paper focuses on students’achievement and attitudes to school, as well as behaviours, how those aspects of learning are related for boys and girls,and the influences that shape differentoutcomes for boys and girls.Consideration is also given to thebroader social development of boys andhow schools contribute to thatdevelopment. Each of these perspectivesis important to understanding thedevelopment of boys through schoolingand the difference in educationaloutcomes for boys and girls.

Research from the ACER program, and arange of other research in Australia andoverseas, has highlighted importantdifferences in educational outcomes forgirls and boys. At primary level boys (onaverage) have significantly lower levels ofachievement in literacy than their femalecounterparts. In mathematics thereappears to be no significant difference in the achievement of boys and girls ateither primary school or early secondaryschool. In fact, on the basis of

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WHAT THIS PAPER IS ABOUT

international studies in which ACER hasparticipated, Australia appears to be one of the few countries in which thedifference between boys and girls inmathematics achievement is negligible.In most countries, the achievement ofboys in mathematics is higher than thatof girls. At secondary school level boysare more likely than girls to leave schoolbefore completing Year 12, and averagescores on end-of-school assessments arelower for boys than for girls. In the finalyears of secondary school, differencesbetween girls and boys in subject choicestill appear to follow patterns establishedover past years.

Beyond school, a smaller percentage of boys than girls progress to highereducation, although a larger proportionof boys participate in vocationaleducation and training programs. In addition there is evidence from arange of studies that boys regard theirschool experience less favourably thangirls and are less strongly engaged in thework of schools. The paper also providesa glimpse of some other issues of theplace that boys have in society whenthey leave school.

There is a discussion of the implicationsof the research and some possiblestrategies for schools, teachers,education authorities and parents to use.

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There is a body of evidence to supportthe notion that boys experience lesssuccess than girls throughout theirprimary and secondary education(Masters & Forster, 1997a,b; Rowe, 2000a;Slade, 2002). The evidence actuallysuggests that there is a widening gapbetween the academic performances ofgirls and boys in Australia, as well as inEnglish speaking countries world-wide(McGaw, 1996; Rowe, 2000b; West, 1999).Compared with girls, findings from theemerging evidence-based researchconsistently indicate:

• boys are significantly more‘disengaged’ with schooling and morelikely to be at ‘risk’ of academicunderachievement – especially inliteracy (Browne & Fletcher, 1995);

• boys exhibit significantly greaterexternalising behaviour problems inthe classroom and at home – i.e., anti-social, inattention, restlessness(Barkley, 1996; Collins et al., 1996; Rowe & Hill, 1998);

• in the early years of schooling, boysconstitute between 75–85 per cent ofthose children (usually in Grades 1 or 2) identified ‘at-risk’ of poorachievement progress in literacy, andselected for participation in a ReadingRecovery intervention program (Rowe, 1999a, 2000c);

• boys report significantly less positiveexperiences of schooling in terms ofenjoyment of school, perceivedcurriculum usefulness and teacherresponsiveness (Rowe & Rowe, 1999);

• boys are more likely to ‘drop out’ ofschooling prematurely. RecentAustralian national estimates indicatethat between 1994 and 1998, 30 per centof boys failed to complete theirsecondary schooling (cf. 20 per cent of girls – Marks et al., 2000). This resultsin reduced employment opportunitiesand general quality of life chances;

• boys are subject to more disciplinaryactions during schooling (includingbullying behaviours and expulsions), aremore likely to participate in subsequentdelinquent behaviours, alcohol andsubstance abuse, and duringadolescence, are 4–5 times more likelythan girls to suffer from depression andcommit suicide (Collins et al., 1996;Zubrick et al. , 1997, Sawyer et al., 2000);

• fifty per cent of consultations topaediatricians at tertiary referralhospitals relate to behaviouralproblems, including Attention-DeficitDisorder (ADD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD),with a ratio of boys 9: girls 1. Further, 20 per cent of referrals relate tolearning difficulties – being made up of predominantly boys demonstratingpoor achievement progress in literacy(Rowe & Rowe, 2000a); and

• boys have a higher prevalence ofauditory processing problems. Unlessappropriate classroom managementstrategies are put in place, theseproblems impact negatively on theirearly literacy achievement andsubsequent progress, as well as theirbehaviours (Rowe, Pollard, Tan & Rowe,2000; Rowe & Rowe, 2000a).

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INTRODUCTION

It is apparent that the achievement offundamental literacy and numeracyskills in early childhood and earlyschooling are strongly correlated withsuccessful educational outcomes inlater years (Ainley et al., 1998). Thedifference between boys’ and girls’success becomes greater as theyprogress through the primary schoolyears.

National literacy benchmarks have beenestablished by the Commonwealth andState Governments. The results fromthe National School English LiteracySurvey which was conducted inAustralia in 1996 indicated that malesconsistently performed worse thanfemales on the literacy benchmarks inprimary schools. Masters and Forster(1997b) reported that the mean literacyachievements of females was higherthan that of males at Years 3 and 5 andthe differences were greater for writingand speaking than for reading. Maleswere more likely to be among thebottom performers, less likely to beamong the top performers and had alower average literacy level thanfemales.

The National Report on Schooling inAustralia (MCEETYA, 2000) reportedsimilar results for data collected in 1999,with 89.7 per cent of females in Year 3achieving the benchmark compared to84.9 per cent of males – this isrepresented in Figure 1.

Pattern of developmentConsistent with a growing body ofresearch, findings from a longitudinalstudy of factors affecting students’progress indicated large differences

between male and female students onall key factors affecting their learningoutcomes (Rowe & Hill, 1996, 1998).That is, girls had significantly higherlevels of achievement and rates ofprogress than males and demonstratedmore attentive behaviours in theclassroom. To illustrate this, Figure 2summarises both the cross-sectionaland longitudinal data for theachievement levels of Victorian boysand girls in each of Years K to 11 on theReading strand of the Victorian EnglishProfiles (Rowe and Hill, 1996) in theform of ‘box-and-whisker’ plots, whichdescribe the ‘shape’ of the distributionsfor each Year Level.

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LITERACY

Figure 1 Percentage of studentsreaching national literacybenchmarks at Year 3.

Source: National Report on Schooling inAustralia, Preliminary Paper 1999 Year 3Reading National Benchmark Results.

50

60

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80

90

100

Males Females

Perc

enta

ge

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Figure 2 Box plots showing distributions for male and female students’progress on the English Profiles – Reading strand, by grade/yearlevel in Victoria (n = 13 700).

Source: Rowe and Hill (1996, p. 335)

K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Grade/year level

8 9 10 M

Bands27

24

21

18

15

12

9

6

3

*

**

*

*

* * *

* * * **

* *

* **

**

*

*

*

*

I

H

G

F

E

D

C

B

A

MalesFemales

The ‘boxes’ in Figure 2 (‘open’ for males and ‘shaded’ for females) describe the rangeof achievement of the ‘middle’ 50 per cent of students at those Year levels. The top ofeach ‘box’ indicates the level of students achieving at the 75th percentile, the bottomof the ‘box’ shows the 25th percentile and the asterisk indicates the 50th percentile,or median value. The top and bottom ‘whiskers’ show the 90th and 10th percentilelevels of achievement respectively.

The distributions shown in Figure 2 forthe Reading strand indicate a period ofrapid growth in both girls’ and boys’achievements during the first few years ofschooling, coinciding with the periodduring which students acquire basicskills, and thereafter show a consistentrate of growth to Year 6. In addition to the marked gender differences inachievement, it is noticeable that therange of achievement increases markedlyover the years of schooling, with morethan four band widths separating Year 9students at the 10th and 90th percentiles.

Figure 2 also provides evidence of adiscontinuity between primary andsecondary schooling with a slightdecrease in the rate of progress ofstudents in the first year of secondaryschool (Year 7). This pattern has beenobserved in several studies usingcommon measures over primary andsecondary schooling (e.g., Elly, 1992;Lunberg & Linnakylä, 1993; Purves, 1973).Rowe (1995) pointed out the similarity ofthis pattern with that shown by paediatricpercentile growth-charts for height andweight during the pre-pubertal to earlyadolescent period of development.

Of particular concern is the flattening outat the 10th percentile from Year 4 to Year 9 (particularly for boys), indicating a trend of less than one band width ofimprovement. Note also, the minimalincrease between Years 8 and 9 –especially for boys. It should be notedthat while similar findings applied to thetwo additional measures of Literacy inthis study (namely, the Writing andSpoken Language strands), both thehigher achievement levels and rate ofgrowth indicated by girls compared withboys were even more evident on thesetwo strands.

In reporting key findings from this studyin terms of students’ achievementprogress in literacy, Hill and Rowe (1998)note:

Of the predictors of student LiteracyAchievement, the most salient wasstudents’ attentiveness in the classroom. Byfar the major proportion of the variance instudent Attentiveness was found to be atthe student-level and the most influentialpredictor of Attentiveness was Gender, withfemale students being significantly moreattentive than male students. Whereas thehigher attentiveness levels of girls isfamiliar to most teachers, the implicationsfor literacy curriculum and its assessmentmay not always be recognised.

In recent years, there has been a greateremphasis within Australian elementaryschools, both in approaches to teaching andlearning and to assessment of studentachievement, on activities that require highlevels of sustained attention. Such activitiesinclude on-task-demanding behaviourssuch as the production of written portfolios,the writing of extended pieces of prose, andthe completion of written research projects.There has been a corresponding move awayfrom short answer and ‘check the box’ typeactivities to tasks requiring increasinglyhigher levels of verbal reasoning skills –activities in which girls have a well-established achievement and maturationaladvantage. It is possible that these changesin pedagogy may have placed, albeitinadvertently, a greater premium onattentiveness that have contributed to thephenomenon of substantial genderdifferences in students’ literacy progress,mediated especially through Attentiveness.

In a report of key findings from the 1998 statewide Literacy and NumeracyAssessment Program for Year 3 and Year 7 students in Tasmanian schools,Rowe (1999c) made links betweeninattentiveness, disengagement and thelack of development of numeracy andliteracy skills.

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In brief, the research evidence suggeststhat throughout their schooling for a largeproportion of boys, the verbal reasoningrequirements and general literacydemands of school curricula andassessment are beyond both theirdevelopmental capacity and normativesocialization experiences to copesuccessfully. Bray et al. (1997) suggest thata key socialization factor contributing toboys’ literacy underachievementcompared with girls is their relativereluctance to read. They identify theincreasing prevalence of video andcomputer use by boys as beingparticularly erosive to boys’ propensity to read, and note that there are majordifferences between adolescent girls andboys in their patterns and quality ofinterpersonal communication among theirpeers. That is, girls are more likely to havesocial lives that revolve around verbaldiscussion and communication, whereas,at this developmental stage, boys weremore likely to have socializationexperiences that revolve around play. In commenting on these phenomena,MacDonald et al. (1999) record:

The increasing use of solitary computergames, more favoured by boys than girls,can only exacerbate these differences.Patterns of behaviour outside school couldeither contribute to girls’ greater ease withlanguage, or be a reflection of it.

Whatever the case, large numbers of boyscan be said to fall into the category of‘underachieving readers’, in the sense thatthey can decode print but cannot read in asustained and flexible way, using a variety ofcontextual clues to extract meaning in thefullest possible sense.

This underachievement by boys and theirinability to ‘cope’ with the operationalliteracy demands of school curricula andassessment, are frequently manifested in boys’ ‘acting-out’ behaviours, low

self-esteem and disengagement orwithdrawal from willing participation in schooling. It has been commented(Rowe & Rowe, 2000b) that among thereasons for higher incidence of problembehaviours among boys in the middleand later years of schooling is that theyfrequently express feelings of alienationfrom a school curriculum that hasbecome increasingly ‘contextualised’with a concentration on the applicationof knowledge and skills to ‘every-day’situations. In interviews, for example,boys frequently express disenchantmentabout their academic progress,particularly in literacy and following thetransition from primary to secondaryschooling. There are also differencesnoted in the rates of suspension for boysand girls. Ainley and Lonsdale (2000)found that even though there was nodifference in absentee rates, boys had ahigher rate of suspension and expulsion.Suspensions were found to be highestfor boys aged between 13 and 15 years.

To compensate for this, many boys placea premium on success in sport and otheractivities that yield positive feedbackfrom their peers, rather than recognitionfrom school staff. Patterns of behaviourout of school also reflect genderdisaggregation. Millard (1997) found thatboys aged eight to 14 mainly only read in school while girls do most of theirreading at home.

It is possible that a key reason for theobserved gender differences inperformance, attitudes and behaviours, isthat since the early 1990s there has been anotable increase in the demand for higherlevels of operational literacy andespecially, verbal reasoning and writtencommunication skills in school education– areas in which girls, on average, havedistinct maturational and socialisation

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advantages (Rowe & Rowe, 1999). Thisdemand is reflected in curriculum designand content, as well as the way it is taughtand assessed – at all stages of primary andsecondary schooling. It is evident inschool-based assessment andstandardised, statewide testing in the earlyand middle years of schooling, as well asin certifying examination programs at Year12. For example, MacDonald et al. (1999)observe: “…recent changes in curriculardesign and assessment practices tend tofavour the traditional strengths of girls”.

The case of changes to somemathematics curricula and theirassessment since the early 1990s isillustrative. Due to shifts in pedagogicalemphasis, there is an increasing demandfor verbal reasoning and writtencommunication skills in curricularcontent and assessment in mathematics.For Year 12 4-Unit Mathematics in NSWor Specialist Mathematics in Victoria, forexample, there is a requirement forstudents to demonstrate extremely highlevels of such skills. That is, the verballypresented, ‘in-context’ problems requireto be read, understood, translated intorelevant algorithms, solved, thenexplained and justified. Such a processrequires sophisticated levels of bothverbal reasoning and writtencommunication skills – which appear to be more ably handled by girls.

Longitudinal research Longitudinal research undertaken byACER shows that there has been a generalincrease in the difference between boys’and girls’ level of reading ability over thepast three decades. In Figure 3 it can beseen that over the period 1975 to 1995 theproportion of 14-year-old males whodemonstrated mastery on the readingtests fell from 70 per cent to 66 per cent,

while the females attaining masterychanged from 73 per cent to 74 per cent.(Marks and Ainley, 1997).

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Boys in secondary school talk aboutreading and writing…

• I don’t read much … I do whateverI have to do and no more … It’s aneffort to pick up a book and readpage after page … I have betterthings to do.

• I don’t know why we can’t havecomic-type books in this school.They do learn you something.

• I start neatly but lose control withlonger pieces … Girls are neaterand work harder than us … Yourhand gets tired and your work getsall messy … It’s an effort to do a lotof writing.

• Some teachers think neathandwriting equals good work.Some of my work isn’t really readand cared about … I’d like to findsome other way of showing what I know.

• It [a lap-top] would make my workneater … it would be easier toplease the teacher, who will thinkit’s looking good … It helps youfeel good about your work … it’s alldone for you. No Tippex – justdelete the mistakes.

Bleach (1998)

The OECD Programme ForInternational Student Assessment – PISA 2000Australia was one of 32 countries thatparticipated in the OECD Programme forInternational Student Assessment (PISA)in 2000. The aim of PISA is to measurethe preparedness for future life, of 15-year-old students (in most countriesthis is the final year of compulsoryschooling). The assessment is to becarried out every three years.

There were three domains of assessmentin PISA 2000, namely reading,mathematical and scientific literacies. In 2000 the focus was on reading, whilein 2003 the concentration will be onmathematical literacy, and on scientificliteracy in 2006. The assessment consistsof a two-hour test followed by aquestionnaire that asks students abouttheir home background and their

perceptions of some facets of school life.In Australia about 6000 students from allstates and territories participated in thestudy.

In every country involved in PISA, girlsperformed significantly better than boysin reading literacy (OECD, 2001). On ascale where the international mean wasstandardised at 500 and the standarddeviation at 100, the overall meanreading score in Australia was 528 – theresult for boys was 513 and for girls 546.This gender difference was about thesame as the OECD average genderdifference.

The results in reading literacy in PISAwere divided into 5 proficiency levels,each level having a score width of about70 points – so the difference betweengirls and boys in Australia could beconsidered to be about half a proficiencylevel. The levels describe the complexityof the type of problems that the studentswere asked to solve. Tasks at Level 1included making a simple connectionbetween information given and commoneveryday knowledge, or locating a pieceof explicitly stated information. At Level5, students were expected to be able tocritically evaluate text, hypothesise andmake complex judgements andinferences. Girls were over representedin the top reading levels, making up 59per cent of the students in Level 5 inAustralia.

The measure of enjoyment of readingwas standardised and scaledinternationally to have a mean of zeroand a standard deviation of one.Australian girls were above theinternational mean on this measure,while Australian boys were below theinternational mean.

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Figure 3 Percentage of males andfemales achievingmastery in reading.

Source: Marks and Ainley (1997)

60

65

70

75

1975 1980 1985

Year

1990 1995

Females

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Males

The text that the students encounteredin PISA was categorised as eithercontinuous, (for example, prose andnarrative text) or non-continuous (forexample, timetables and lists). It wasfound that boys’ performance was pooron assessment items associated withcontinuous texts and that boys do notread for pleasure as much as girls do.Forty per cent of boys said that theynever read for enjoyment compared to25 per cent of girls, while 47 per cent ofboys read only if they have to, comparedto 30 per cent of girls.

PISA also included measures of students’perceptions of school and home andtheir approaches to learning. One ofthese variables measured students’engagement in reading. Although it wasfound that Australian students, ingeneral, scored the same as the OECDaverage on this measure, there weresignificant differences between boys andgirls. This is important because

engagement in reading was found to becorrelated with reading literacyachievement in all countries.

PISA also collected information from thestudents about their home background,their parents’ occupations and level ofeducation. Socioeconomic status wasdefined on an international scale basedon occupation (Ganzeboom et al, 1992).In Figure 4 it can be seen that whensocioeconomic status is taken intoaccount, the probability of boys with lowsocioeconomic status having a lowreading score1 is nearly 50 per cent,compared to girls of a similarsocioeconomic status, who had a 34 per cent chance of having a lowreading score. It was found that not onlydid the probability of being in the lowreading group decrease with increasingSES, but that the difference in probabilitybetween boys and girls became smaller,supporting the notion that the boys froma low socioeconomic background aremost at risk, with regard to reading.

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Table 1 Reading attitudes as measured in PISA.

*Note: The ‘enjoyment of reading’ scale was standardised internationally to have a mean of zero and astandard deviation of one. A negative score does not necessarily suggest that students had a negativeview of reading – it simply shows that the result was lower than the international average.

VariableNever read for enjoymentRead only if I have toReading is a waste of timeRead fiction at least once a weekNever borrow books from libraryMean on ‘enjoyment of reading’ scale*

Girls2530174128

0.16

Boys4047302347

-0.30

Percentages by gender for reading attitudes and habits in Australia

1 The ‘low’ SES group and the ‘low’ reading group were both defined to be those students in the lowest 25 per cent of each of those measures.

The discrepancy between boys’ and girls’performance in Year 12 assessments andtertiary entrance scores has been thefocus of much discussion since thebeginning of the 1990’s. Comparisonsbetween males and females can be madeon the basis of their ENTER scores(Equivalent National Tertiary EntranceRank), a score which is equivalent acrossAustralia. Before these scores weredeveloped it was difficult to compare the

performance of students from differentstates. The calculation of ENTER scorestakes into account the proportion ofstudents from each state who sit fortertiary entrance examinations in anyparticular year.

Much of the debate has centred on theextent to which boys lag behind girls.Marks, McMillan and Hillman (2002)reported that in New South Wales,Victoria and Western Australia, females

In mathematical literacy, boysoutperformed girls in about half of thecountries in the PISA survey. This was nottrue in Australia where no significantdifferences were calculated in any of theAustralian states and territories (Lokan,Greenwood and Cresswell, 2001). Inscientific literacy, internationally, therewas no clear pattern of results relating to gender. In some countries boysperformed better than girls (for example,Austria, Denmark, and Korea) while inothers, girls performed better than boys(for example, Latvia, New Zealand andthe Russian Federation). In Australia,there was no significant differencebetween boys and girls as a whole or inany of the states and territories. Withincreasing SES the probability of being inthe lowest group for scientific literacydeclined by the same amount for boysand girls.

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Figure 4 The probability of beingin the lowest readinggroup according tosocioeconomic status.

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90Socioeconomic status index

0

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70Pr

ob

abili

ty o

f bei

ng

in lo

wes

t rea

din

g gr

ou

p (%

)

Males

Females

YEAR 12 PERFORMANCE

outnumbered males in the majority ofsubjects and in the top percentile bandof results. On average, they found thatfemale students scored two to threeENTER points higher than male students.The average female ENTER score in 1998was 71.4 compared to the average malescore of 68.7. Overall, there was a low,but significant correlation foundbetween gender and ENTER scores,although the correlations are lower thanthose found for socioeconomicbackground.

The distribution of scores is alsodifferent for each gender, with boys’scores being dispersed to a greaterdegree than girls. Males are more likelyto be found at the top and the bottom ofthe distribution. Buckingham (2000)writes that this is also true of some othermeasurements.

Buckingham also notes that of the 99 ‘allround achievers’ named by the NSWBoard of Studies in 1999, two thirds ofthem were girls and that the top 10 percent of HSC students were comprised of58 per cent girls and 42 per cent boys. Insome other states, such as Queenslandand South Australia, there was also agreater proportion of girls than boys inthe top performance bands.

Over the last 25 years there has been anotable shift in the pattern ofeducational performance on monitoring-type achievement tests and on publicexaminations, with girls nowoutperforming boys on all areas of theassessments. Consistent withinternational trends, this shift has beenparticularly marked over the last decadein Australia. For example, in his review ofthe New South Wales Higher SchoolCertificate, McGaw (1996, p. 108) notes:

In 1991, males were over-represented at thetop and bottom of the Tertiary EntranceRanks, while females were over-represented in the middle ranges.

By 1995, the position had changedmarkedly… Females are now over-represented in all the high Tertiary EntranceRank ranges, and males are even more over-represented at the bottom.

Similarly, the gender effect in favour offemales on achieved subject scores inthe Victorian Certificate of Education(VCE) between 1994 and 1999 had anaverage magnitude of +0.26 standarddeviation units per subject (Rowe, 1999b,Rowe, Turner & Lane, 1999, 2000).

West (1999) states:

Nobody seems to be able to explainsatisfactorily what happened from 1990onwards to assist girls, on average, to dobetter than boys and improve thisperformance year after year, nor why boyshave begun to do so poorly, relative to girls.

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The states and territories conduct theirown testing program for numeracy atvarious grade groups and, generally,there have been no significantdifferences observed in numeracy levelsfor males and females.

In some international studies ofmathematics and science, such as theThird International Mathematics andScience Study (TIMSS) it has been foundthat boys generally score higher thangirls, especially in science. The disparityincreases towards the end of secondaryschooling (Mullis, Martin,

Fierros, Goldberg & Stemler, 2000). In Australia, however, Lokan, Ford andGreenwood (1996) found that in theresults of both the 9-year-old and 13-year-old students there were nosignificant gender differences.

By analysing longitudinal data, Marks and Ainley (1997) found thatbetween 1975 and 1995 there were nosignificant changes, generally, innumeracy achievement in 14-year-oldstudents in Austalia and that the scorefor males is slightly higher than forfemales.

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MATHEMATICS

Differences have been observed inexperience and skill capacity betweenboys and girls in computing. Following a study conducted with 6213 students in a national sample in 1997/1998, Meredyth et al. (1999) compiled a list of core skills (Table 2):

Seventy-four per cent of boys reported thatthey had all 13 skills, compared with only 62per cent of girls. Boys are slightly morelikely than girls to report that they knowhow to delete and move files, create a new

document and get data from a disk or CD-ROM – the same skills whoseprevalence appeared to be related toschool level, school sector and averageweekly income of the school area.

Both boys and girls were most likely to havelearned each of the skills at home ratherthan at school. However, this pattern ismore pronounced for boys (a differenceranging from eight to 18 percentage points,depending on the particular skill), with agreater proportion of girls acquiring theskills at school.

PROFICIENCY WITH COMPUTERS

They also note:

A comparison of girls’ and boys’ attainmentof basic information technology skills at theend of primary school and the end of juniorsecondary school found that girls do notappear to catch up with boys as theyprogress through school. At the end ofprimary school, 54 per cent of girls had allthe 13 basic skills compared with 67 percent of boys; and at the end of juniorsecondary school, 71 per cent of girls hadall the basic skills, compared with 83 percent of boys.

Meredyth et al,1999

They explain these variations as beinglikely to be related to many other genderdifferences identified in their study. Forexample they note the greater likelihoodfor boys either to own their owncomputer, or at least to have access toone at home. Boys also have a tendencyto spend more time using computersoutside school.

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Table 2 Girls and boys basic computer skills and where first acquired.

Core skill

Use a mouseTurn on a computerUse a keyboardShut down and turn offExit/quit a programmeSave a documentPrint a documentStart a programmeOpen a saved documentDelete filesGet data from floppy disk or CD-ROMCreate a new document

Girls%

9999999898959696948383

80

Boys%

9898989898959696959089

87

Possess theskill

Girls%

5861576360525752524641

40

Boys%

6870677169626464626258

54

Acquiredat home

Girls%

4037413437433742423439

41

Boys%

3029312628343132342628

33

Acquiredat school

Apparent retention rates for schooleducationFor the past two decades, policy makersand the public have used, as an indicatorof an education system’s performance, its ability to retain students to Year 12.This measure is complex because it isalso related to the labour market and theuptake of training opportunities by somestudents. Apparent retention rates,nonetheless, are important measures ofthe performance of education systemsand related government policies. Theapparent retention rate is an estimate ofthe percentage of students of a givencohort who continued to a particularlevel or year of education. In theaccompanying figure, apparent retentionrates are shown for full-time studentswho continued to Year 12. It is calculated

as a simple ratio expressed as apercentage of the number of students in Year 12 compared to the number ofstudents in their cohort at thecommencement of secondary schooling(Year 7 or Year 8, depending on the state).

It can be seen in Figure 5, that there hasbeen a general increase in retention ratesfor both males and females in the periodbetween 1970 and 2001. From 1970 until1976, the female retention rate was lessthan the male retention rate. In 1975/76both retention rates were approximatelyequal at around 35 per cent. The yearsfrom 1981 to 1991 saw the retention ratesfor all students double with an increasefrom approximately 35 per cent to 71 per cent. It is noticeable also that thedifference between retention rates formales and females increased markedlyduring the 1980s, and has remained since.There has been a slight decrease in retention rates since 1992.

It is possible that boys’ lower retentionrates reflect the fact that more boys takeup apprenticeships, although not allearly leavers achieve a successfuloutcome and they may be put at adisadvantage compared to those whocomplete Year 12. Marks and Ainley(1997) and Lamb (1997) showed that lowachievement in earlier years of highschool reduces the chances ofcompleting Year 12.

Marks, Fleming, Long and McMillan (2000)found that the gender gap between malesand females in both participation in Year 12 and in higher education hascontinued to widen. Females outnumbermales in both areas and the gap, whichhas increased since the 1980s, is nowaround 10 percentage points.

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EDUCATIONAL PARTICIPATION

Figure 5 Apparent retention ratesin Australian schools1970–2001.

Source: Schools Australia 2001. AustralianBureau of Statistics

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60

70

80

90

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Females

Males

Age participation rates Age participation rates measure thenumber of full-time students of aparticular age and sex, expressed as aproportion of the estimated residentpopulation of the same age and sex.Whereas apparent retention rates rely onstudents having to progress year by yearthrough the system, participation ratesrelate to the population as a whole.

It can be seen from Figure 6 that boyshave a lower participation rate in thefinal years of secondary schooling fromage 15 to 18. This information, takenalong with the retention rate informationis showing that, in general, there arefactors influencing some boys to avoidtheir final years of secondary education.

The age participation rates of full-timestudents aged 15–19 in the differentstates of Australia (Figure 7) shows alower rate of participation for males thanfemales in all of the states.

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17

Figure 6 Age participation rates in Australian schools.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics,Schools Australia 2000

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

15 16 17

Age

% p

arti

cip

atio

n r

ate

18 19

Females

Males

Figure 7 Age participation rates in different states of Australia.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Schools Australia 2000

35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

%

Age participation rates (a), full-time students – aged 15–19: 2000

AustACTVicTas

NSWSA

QldWANT

MalesFemales

Subject participationFullarton and Ainley (2000) confirmedprevious patterns that had beenobserved in relation to subject choice bymales and females. In 1998, they foundthat the subject areas that had a highproportion of female enrolments werethe home sciences (females made up 71 per cent of enrolments), Languagesother than English (68 per cent) andhealth (63 per cent). In contrast therewas a predominance of males intechnical studies (80 per cent), computerstudies (65 per cent) and physicaleducation (67 per cent). Males also madeup 62 per cent of the enrolments inphysical sciences and females made up 60 per cent of enrolments in biologicaland other sciences. In the years from1993 to 1998, there was an overall declineof both male and female enrolments insciences.

In mathematics, there was a higherproportion of males enrolled, especiallyin the specialist mathematics courses. In other areas such as English and Arts,females had a slightly higher level ofenrolment.

Generally, boys have tended to choosesubjects that are more orientated to thephysical sciences, mathematics andtechnology and less orientated towardsthe humanities and high level Englishstudies such as literature.

Single sex or coeducationWhether or not boys and girls achievebetter results in single-sex or coeducational environments has beenthe subject of much research in Australiaand overseas. Rowe (1988) investigatedwhether being in a single-sex and mixed-sex class had a relationship withmathematics achievement and approach

to school. Based on results of a study inVictoria he found that students in single-sex classes obtained significantlyhigher gains in confidence over timethan those in mixed-sex classes.

Rowe (1988) wrote that the strategy ofestablishing single sex classes withincoeducational schools arose in responseto a body of literature (for example,Leder, 1987) which suggested that boysconsistently receive a greater proportionof a teacher’s time in mixed-sexclassrooms. Spender (1982) estimatedthat boys receive two-thirds of ateacher’s time in mixed-sex classrooms,principally through a higher incidence of teacher-demanding behaviours andteacher-student disciplinary interactions.It was found that both boys and girlswere more likely to seek assistance fromclassmates of the same sex.

Parker and Rennie (1995) in their study of the Western Australian Single-SexEducation Pilot Project (SSEPP) 1993–1994considered the advantages anddisadvantages of single-sex groupings ofstudents. The SSEPP was undertaken ineight high schools in mathematics andscience classes, mostly at the Year 8 and9 level. Parker and Rennie found that, inrelation to the boys’ and girls’ attitudes,behaviours and experiences, there wascomplete congruence between theperceptions made by teachers, studentsand researchers.

They found that girls in mixed-sexgroups had less favourable attitudes toMathematics and Science than girls insingle-sex classes or boys in single- andmixed-sex classes. In both Mathematicsand Science, girls in mixed-sex classesperceived themselves to participate less,to be less extroverted, to have lessinteraction with the teacher and toPage

18

receive more harassment from otherstudents than girls in single-sex classes.

In this study it was found that there wasa strong trend for the majority ofstudents (especially girls) to favoursingle-sex classes. Teachers in the studymostly preferred single-sex classes forgirls and mixed-sex for boys.

Several former all-boys schools inAustralia have chosen to becomecoeducational, and some coeducationalschools have adopted single-sex classgroupings. However, it is important notto over-interpret the ‘importance’ ofthese gender and gender/class/school-grouping effects, since they are not assignificant as class/teacher effects –regardless of student gender. There mayalso be other pressures for schools tochange the gender pattern of theirenrolment, such as a desire to increasenumbers generally, or to broaden thebase of enrolment.

Caution is also needed in interpretingresults related to single-sex school andclass effects because background factors,such as socioeconomic status need to betaken into account. In addition, much ofthe research has been based oncognitive achievements in schoolsettings, without a broader considerationof long term social outcomes andattitudes that students take into theiradult lives.

Post school destinationsAn analysis of Australian Bureau ofStatistics data (Transition From Educationto Work, May 1999) shows somedifferences for males and females intheir post-school destinations. The datasummarises the 1999 destinations ofthose who left school at the end of 1998.A greater percentage of males than

females went into full time employmentafter they left school (17 per cent formales and 12 per cent of females); 29 per cent of males and 37 per cent offemales went on to Higher Education;overall, 59 per cent of males and 64 percent of females go on to furthereducation. Males were more likely to be unemployed than females.

Marks, Fleming, Long and McMillan(2000) showed that there was a change in the pattern of enrolment of males andfemales in higher education during the1980s and 1990s. During the 1980s theattendance was much the same for both,whereas by the mid 1990s females wereenrolled at a rate 8 per cent higher thanmales.

Looking at the probability of completinga tertiary course, Urban et al. (1999)found that gender was an importantfactor. They examined the academicoutcomes in 1997 of undergraduates inAustralia who had commenced a tertiarycourse in 1992 and found that 64 per centof females had completed an award,compared with 55 per cent of males. In addition, they also reported that agreater proportion of males in 1997 hadeither not completed a course or werenot studying at the university of theirenrolment.

Between the years 1993 and 1999, theproportion of total female enrolments at university increased from 53.3 per cent to 55.2 per cent while male enrolmentsdecreased from 46.7 per cent to 44.8 per cent. (DEST, 2002).

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Attitudes to societyAttitudes to society are formulated, atleast in part, by the experiences whichschools and schooling provide. A studyof such attitudes (Ainley, Batten, Collinsand Withers, 1998) shows an interestingdouble effect. Not only do girls and boysdiffer significantly in their attitudes tocertain values like rules and conventionsand community well-being while theyare in primary school (in this study, Year 5), but the differences haveincreased (again significantly) whenstudents’ views are investigated againafter a few years’ progress through theirschooling (in this study, Year 10).

For example, consider the following setsof ratings drawn from the nationallyrepresentative sample of 350 schoolsused in the study. There are three issuesthat stand out as being central to aperson’s experience of society, andchances of living well and happily withinit – Relating to others; Community well-being; Conformity with rules andconventions. Gender differences relating

to these issues were observed. In each of these major categories representingsocial attitudes, boys’ are lower thangirls’ ratings, in late primary school.Although between Year 5 and Year 10 all ratings decline, boys’ ratings declinemore than girls’ do.

It may be that reducing genderdifferences in attitudes to society is assignificant a task, in social terms, asminimising gender differences inachievement levels.

Juvenile crimeIt appears that beyond the classroom,boys are also undergoing differentexperiences to girls. This becomesevident when statistics relating to crimeare investigated. In exploring the genderdifferences in juvenile crime rates asmeasured by the number of arrests,Buckingham (2000) found that thenumber of boys arrested was higher thanthe number of girls. She found, also, thatthe gender gap is particularly large forproperty crime.

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SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND OUTCOMES

Table 3 Attitudes to society.

All differences in each category are statistically significant.Compiled from Ainley, et al. 1998, pp.41; 55; 71

Males

Females

Year 5

49.1

53.0

Year 10

45.0

52.5

Relatingto others

Ratings of importance of:

Year 5

50.8

54.2

Year 10

44.2

50.9

Communitywell-being

Year 5

52.3

55.2

Year 10

44.3

48.9

Conformity withrules and conventions

In addition, the statistics indicate thatyoung males are over represented asvictims of crime, compared to girls.Buckingham found that victimisationrates for assault and attempted murderwere highest among young men agedfrom 15 to 24.

It would appear then, that some youngmen are not only the perpetrators of adisproportionate amount of crime, butalso the victims of it.

SuicideA person’s maladjustment to society can,in its most severe form, take the form ofintentional self-harm or suicide. Thestatistics relating to intentional self harmindicate a difference between thegenders.

Figure 8 shows the male:female ratio of suicide for different age groups in

Australia. For people aged 15–24, it wasfound that the rate of male suicide is fivetimes that of the female rate. In fact,suicide is the leading cause of deathamong young males in the 15–24 yearsage group. Suicide rates for males of allages are much higher than those forfemales (Steenkamp and Harrison, 2000).Of the total number of suicides, 80.1 per cent were males.

In observing general trends in suicideover the twentieth century from 1921until 1998, Buckingham, found thatsuicide rates for young males increasedsignificantly. In the 15–19 years age groupthe rate doubled in that time from 9 to 18per 100 000, while for 20–24-year-oldmales the rate tripled from 12 to 36 per100 000. In comparison the femalesuicide rates for the same age groups didnot go above 9 per 100 000 in the sametime period.

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Figure 8 Comparison of male and female suicide rate.

Source: Steenkamp and Harrison. Suicide and hospitalised self harm in Australia. Adelaide: AustralianInstitute of Health and Welfare (2000).

0–4 10–14 20–24

Mal

e:Fe

mal

e ra

tio

Age group (years)

30–34 40–44 50–54 60–64 70–74

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

The fact that teacher-factors have strongpositive effects on students’ attitudes,behaviours in the classroom andachievement outcomes is very significant– for the education of both boys andgirls. As Slavin et al. (1997) found in theirevaluation of the “Success for All”program among low socioeconomicstatus schools in Baltimore andPhiladelphia, students who, regardless of their gender, socioeconomic or ethnicbackgrounds, are taught by well-trained,strategically focussed, energetic andenthusiastic teachers, are fortunate. The fact that teachers and schools makea difference should provide impetus andencouragement to those concerned withthe crucial issues of educationaleffectiveness.

Slade (2002) emphasised the importanceof having good teachers in a school andhow important it is that they are willingto establish relationships with theirstudents based on mutual respect andunderstanding.

At the very basis of the notion ofeducational effectiveness, however,operational literacy, verbal reasoning andwritten communication skills are crucial,and need to be emphasised as keys toimproving the achievements andexperiences of boys throughout theirprimary and secondary schooling.

MacDonald et al. (1999, pp. 18–19)outlined the following as being effectivestrategies that support the learningneeds of boys:

• Focus on support for literacy across the curriculum;

• Early diagnosis and intervention forthose ‘at-risk’ of literacyunderachievement;

• Highly structured instructions andlessons;

• Greater emphasis on teacher-directedwork in the classroom in preference to ‘group’ work;

• Clear objectives and detailedinstructions; explicit criteria forpresentation of work;

• Short-term, challenging tasks andtargets with frequent changes ofactivity;

• Establishment of assessment andmonitoring systems designed toidentify underachievement in key skillsacross the curriculum, as well as inindividual subjects;

• Regular personal interviews for thepurposes of target-setting;

• Positive reinforcement: immediate and credible awards for quality work,increased effort and/or improvedbehaviour;

• Providing opportunities for extratuition/revision;

• Planned program of differentiatedpersonal and social development;

• Meaningful work experienceplacement aimed at informing studentsabout changing roles in adult andworking life.

Bleach (1998) suggests:

• to have highly public and well-supported expectations;

• to explain carefully to parents theimportance of their role as listenersand readers;

• to set reading challenges for boys thatare realistic and that stretch them;

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IMPLICATIONS AND STRATEGIES

• to use phrases and techniques like‘word attack skills’ which appeal toboys’ sense of competition.

The second point is especially important.Shopen and Liddicoat (1998) make theposition clear: mothers are more likely to be engaged in literacy activitiesassociated with the school. When fathers

engage in literacy activities they aremore likely to be at work. At home theytend not be involved in activities that areassociated with school literacy. Breakingthis pattern could be beneficial: for manyfathers, reading to their sons, or at leastassociating with specifically schoolliteracy activities, could both increase theopportunities for role-modelling andpromote literacy at the same time.

Boys’ experience of fiction is reputed tobe lower than girls’, both before andafter starting school (Bleach, 1998), andthis is reported as a factor whichinfluences their learning and responsestyles beyond the language classroomand its associated activities. For exampleMurphy and Elwood (1998) describeboys’ preferred response style in writingas “episodic, factual and commentative”,compared with girls’ “extended reflectivecomposition”. In some ways boys“sacrifice deep understanding for correctanswers achieved at speed”(Sukhnandan, 1999). But there are novelsand narratives for boys available, whichdo not sacrifice exploration ofrelationships in the interests of action,drama and speed. They will probablyinevitably have male lead characters.

Put more simply, the strategic answersfor schools will involve:

• the use of curriculum content andresources which will interest both boysand girls;

• more teacher-led (though notnecessarily dominated) work;

• mixed gender pairing in appropriateschools and contexts;

• single-sex classes for special issues;

• provision of clearly available andresource-rich learning support. Page

23

What should boys read?

• focus on the quality of reading – both what is read, and how well it is read – in classroom, library andelsewhere;

• focus on the fact that boys do readprint matter such as newspapersand computer messages, andestablish the need to introduceother sorts of text into schools;

• focus on boys’ preference forfactual and informative reading andwriting, at the expense of writingabout feelings;

• focus on stories being importantfor entering into others’ lives andsee how they deal with problems,relationships, and generally assistpeople to manage their lives;

• emphasise narrative as a powerfultext in working out what our livesmean;

• relate reading to the more generalneed for boys to be connected;

• recognise that non-fiction, whichmany boys prefer, is valuable but isnot generally read in as muchvolume, and is therefore weak interms of developing readingstamina.

Gilbert and Gilbert (1998) identify fivemain types of intervention used withboys:

• disciplinary responses which attemptto control the anti-social fallout ofboys’ behaviour, like bullying andharassment;

• strategies [which] consider theknowledge content needed if boys are to understand how they are influencedby contemporary masculinity;

• boys’ ability to discuss and reflecton their experience and how it isinfluenced by their social context;

• develop skills such as interpersonalcommunication which might assistboys in their relations with others;

• deal with boys’ attitudes, values,emotions and sensitivities throughstrategies approaching personaltherapy.

The use of these interventions was foundto have a positive effect on boys.

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Page

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Gender issues in schools and societyhave been the subject of much researchand discussion in recent years. In thepast two decades there have been anumber of initiatives and changes thathave occurred. Girls have beenencouraged to participate more insubjects regarded as non-traditional forthem, such as high level mathematicscourses, physical sciences andinformation technology. At the sametime, boys have been encouraged tostudy subjects such as literature, the artsand languages other than English.Research suggests that these traditionsare difficult to break down.

There have been many other changes in education while these initiatives weretaking place. In many subjectsundertaken at school, there has been amove towards curricula that have a muchstronger focus on ‘everyday’ issues andsocial implications. This is true, not onlyof the humanities subjects but also inmathematics and sciences. There is abody of evidence supporting the notionthat some boys are experiencing

difficulty in adjusting to these challengesthat they face in school and, later, insociety.

It appears that the major area ofpotential difficulty at school for boys isliteracy. Achievement results in primaryand secondary education suggest thatthere are significant gender differences,especially in the area of reading wheregirls outperform boys at both levels.

International studies show that, althoughsome of these patterns are widespreadthroughout the world, the degree ofengagement that Australian boys havewith reading, is less, on average, thanstudents overseas. It has been shownthat this has an effect on the level ofreading proficiency that they can obtain.

An attempt to overcome the difficultiesfaced by some boys can be undertakenwith the assistance of teachers, schoolsand parents. Many schools areundertaking programmes which includethe provision of appropriate stimulatingreading material to try to engage boys in reading.

CONCLUSION

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In the past decade there has been a growing perception in Australiathat girls have become more successful pursuing their educationalgoals than boys – especially in educational outcomes relating toliteracy. In addition there is evidence from a range of studies that boysregard their school experience less favourably than girls and are lessstrongly engaged in the work of schools. This paper focuses onstudents’ achievement and attitudes to school, and the influences thatshape different outcomes for boys and girls. Beyond school, a smallerproportion of boys than girls progress to higher education, althougha larger proportion of boys participate in vocational education andtraining programs. Consideration is also given to the broader socialdevelopment of boys and how schools contribute to that development.

9

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