Report: High school girls have lower grades, less higher learning if overly exposed to high-achieving boys
Marie Donlon | April 23, 2019
High school females with greater exposure to high-achieving boys than high-achieving girls will likely have lower math and science grades and are less likely to complete a bachelor's degree. This is according to new research from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Researchers looked at data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, a sample of U.S. students in grades 7 through 12 beginning with the 1994 to 1995 school year. Based on this sample, researchers state that the girls most vulnerable to this effect are likely below median ability-wise, already planning to not attend college, have at least one college-educated parent and attend a school where more than half of the student population tested at or above grade level.
According to the report, by the time these girls are between the ages of 26 and 32, they reportedly have lower work force participation and more children. Likewise, they were less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree, pursuing two-year degrees instead.
The authors suggest that the reason for the effect is likely a lack of confidence.
“Faced with a greater proportion of ‘high-performing’ boys, girls may become less self-confident about their own ability in traditionally male-dominated fields such as math and science,” the authors speculated. “More generally, these high-school girls may become more discouraged or think themselves less competent which could then affect their actual performance.”
Conversely, researchers discovered that high-achieving boys were unaffected by other high-achieving boys and high-achieving girls. Also, girls with lower ability, without a college-educated parent and who attended a school where more than half of the student population tested at or above grade level were positively impacted by exposure to high-achieving girls, and consequently were more likely to earn bachelor’s degrees.
Identified as just one factor likely keeping women from STEM career paths, and consequently higher-paying jobs, researchers recommend that teachers should identify these girls early on, and expose them to just as many high-achieving girls as high-achieving boys, as well as creating policies to boost this population's self-confidence.
So we segregate the smart boys from the not so smart girls so as to not hurt their feelings?
Or, do we just tell the boys to "act dumb?"
I'm being (sort of) facetious here, but how far must one go to protect girls self esteem?
Or they simply were not interested in it, and therefore less likely to put in the effort to go the extra mile.
People are over-thinking this whole gender parity business. At some point, we will finally re-acknowledge that in general, girls are different than boys.
As much as I tried to inspire STEMness in my three girls, they followed paths towards medicine, literature, and law respectively. And that's O.K. It's more important they do something that they enjoy.
I suspect the boy's performance might suffer if they were exposed to over-exposed girls as well....The problem is that sexual awakening and social interaction is happening at the same time as teachers are trying to distract kids with knowledge, it's not a fair fight.... Boys and girls should be separated at age 12 into separate schools, and have their heads shaved and wear uniforms...or they should be allowed to frolic in a socially conducive atmosphere with classes shown on interesting informative videos...they should be taken on field trips around the town, state, country and abroad to visit historic sites, museums, concerts, zoos, and other places of interest...but both at the same time....no...it's too much to handle...
What do they mean Higher Achieving boys.