Young men, many of them barely literate, fill our prisons and dominate our suicide statistics. At the same time, in our schools and communities, there is growing evidence that increasing numbers of boys and young men are turning to misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate.
At least part of the explanation lies with our education system. Back in the 1970s, across the Western world, male and female achievement in secondary qualifications was broadly similar, although more men than women participated in tertiary study.
Around the mid-1980s, though, female students caught up with, and then surpassed, male students on both of these indices.
Now, in every developed country including New Zealand, female students are outperforming male students at every level of education, in almost every subject. The only exception, in some countries, is that male students retain an advantage in mathematics and the physical sciences.
The gap between the sexes in reading and writing is of particular concern. OECD test data have shown a consistent and significant male deficit in literacy for many years.
Poor literacy presents a major barrier to accessing broader educational opportunities. Male underachievement in literacy, then, may well explain male underachievement more generally.
For example, just 32% of male students who commenced Year 11 in 2020 had achieved university entrance (UE) by the end of 2022 compared with 45% of female students. That is a significant and worrying gap.
Crucially, relatively poor school outcomes for boys flow on to tertiary education. The data are compelling. Including both vocational and academic programmes, for every two men enrolled in tertiary programmes, there are three women.
Study at bachelor’s degree level shows a similar gap. Drilling into specific domains of study, woman outnumber men across the board, other than in engineering, IT, forestry and building studies.
The legal profession provides a useful illustration of change. Currently there are roughly equal numbers of male and female lawyers practising in New Zealand. However the split of those coming into the profession signals big changes ahead. In 1980, just over 26% of new lawyers were female. In 2021, it was 72%.
One response to this situation may be, so what? Some commentators would note that a pay gap still exists in favour of men, and that men continue to “run things”, especially in the top echelons of power.
There are at least two problems with arguments like these.
First, arguing that men “do better” than women, post school, or that the patriarchy is alive and well, doesn’t help boys who have been failed by the education system.
A disproportionate number of such boys have grown up in poverty and or other challenging circumstances. Telling them about the pay gap and pointing out that men still “run things” won’t wash.
Second, every year a substantial cohort of young men leaves school poorly equipped to deal with an increasingly challenging social and economic environment. It is these young men who are most vulnerable to adopting extreme and destructive views.
The response of successive New Zealand governments, of both colours, has been to ignore the issue. The Ministry of Education currently has no initiatives in place to address the underachievement of boys and no intention of changing that. Their focus instead is on poor educational outcomes for Māori and Pasifika.
Their thesis seems to be that, if we can address the poor achievement of Māori and Pasifika, we will also address the issue of boys’ underachievement since many failing boys are Māori.
A focus on Māori is clearly important. However, many boys of other ethnicities are also being let down by our education system. In fact, girls in any demographic group achieve more highly in education than boys in the same demographic group. Asian girls do better than Asian boys. Rich girls do better than rich boys. And so on.
The ministry’s ethno-centric approach, then, leaves too many questions unanswered. Does our curriculum or our approach to assessment disadvantage boys? Does the fact that boys are raised increasingly by single mums, and go to primary schools staffed predominantly by female teachers matter? Do teachers unconsciously favour students of their own gender? Do boys get the message from their teachers that they are not as good at learning as girls? Do behavioural factors for boys impact on how they are perceived as learners? Does the very culture of modern coeducational schools disadvantage boys?
We don’t know the answers to all of these questions, although there is some national and international research to draw on. What is clear, though, is that successive ministers of education pretending we don’t have a boy problem will yield terrible outcomes for us all.
It is to be hoped that the incoming minister will take the issue more seriously.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne.
Bali Haque, is a New Zealand educator. His career has included four principalships.
This article was published HERE
Around the mid-1980s, though, female students caught up with, and then surpassed, male students on both of these indices.
Now, in every developed country including New Zealand, female students are outperforming male students at every level of education, in almost every subject. The only exception, in some countries, is that male students retain an advantage in mathematics and the physical sciences.
The gap between the sexes in reading and writing is of particular concern. OECD test data have shown a consistent and significant male deficit in literacy for many years.
Poor literacy presents a major barrier to accessing broader educational opportunities. Male underachievement in literacy, then, may well explain male underachievement more generally.
For example, just 32% of male students who commenced Year 11 in 2020 had achieved university entrance (UE) by the end of 2022 compared with 45% of female students. That is a significant and worrying gap.
Crucially, relatively poor school outcomes for boys flow on to tertiary education. The data are compelling. Including both vocational and academic programmes, for every two men enrolled in tertiary programmes, there are three women.
Study at bachelor’s degree level shows a similar gap. Drilling into specific domains of study, woman outnumber men across the board, other than in engineering, IT, forestry and building studies.
The legal profession provides a useful illustration of change. Currently there are roughly equal numbers of male and female lawyers practising in New Zealand. However the split of those coming into the profession signals big changes ahead. In 1980, just over 26% of new lawyers were female. In 2021, it was 72%.
One response to this situation may be, so what? Some commentators would note that a pay gap still exists in favour of men, and that men continue to “run things”, especially in the top echelons of power.
There are at least two problems with arguments like these.
First, arguing that men “do better” than women, post school, or that the patriarchy is alive and well, doesn’t help boys who have been failed by the education system.
A disproportionate number of such boys have grown up in poverty and or other challenging circumstances. Telling them about the pay gap and pointing out that men still “run things” won’t wash.
Second, every year a substantial cohort of young men leaves school poorly equipped to deal with an increasingly challenging social and economic environment. It is these young men who are most vulnerable to adopting extreme and destructive views.
The response of successive New Zealand governments, of both colours, has been to ignore the issue. The Ministry of Education currently has no initiatives in place to address the underachievement of boys and no intention of changing that. Their focus instead is on poor educational outcomes for Māori and Pasifika.
Their thesis seems to be that, if we can address the poor achievement of Māori and Pasifika, we will also address the issue of boys’ underachievement since many failing boys are Māori.
A focus on Māori is clearly important. However, many boys of other ethnicities are also being let down by our education system. In fact, girls in any demographic group achieve more highly in education than boys in the same demographic group. Asian girls do better than Asian boys. Rich girls do better than rich boys. And so on.
The ministry’s ethno-centric approach, then, leaves too many questions unanswered. Does our curriculum or our approach to assessment disadvantage boys? Does the fact that boys are raised increasingly by single mums, and go to primary schools staffed predominantly by female teachers matter? Do teachers unconsciously favour students of their own gender? Do boys get the message from their teachers that they are not as good at learning as girls? Do behavioural factors for boys impact on how they are perceived as learners? Does the very culture of modern coeducational schools disadvantage boys?
We don’t know the answers to all of these questions, although there is some national and international research to draw on. What is clear, though, is that successive ministers of education pretending we don’t have a boy problem will yield terrible outcomes for us all.
It is to be hoped that the incoming minister will take the issue more seriously.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne.
Bali Haque, is a New Zealand educator. His career has included four principalships.
This article was published HERE
8 comments:
I discuss the problem of the underachievement of many boys in my 2005 paper 'Smoothing the secondary-tertiary education interface: Developments in New Zealand following the National Qualifications Framework reforms', Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Vol. 57, pp. 411-418. The case I make is that there are a significant number of teenage boys who are not well served by the 'academic' model of schooling but respond positively to vocational programmes.
Why exert yourself academically at school when you can earn a fortune as an all black, with or without academic ability? The daydream deludes and diverts far too many.
Often at the public library I see little girls with their mothers checking out a mountain of books. Rarely see boys doing same.
The succession of glib woman caregivers, teachers etc is a major problem. Real men are discouraged by the constant need and threat to be PC, never obliquely joke, never touch, never offend etc.boys are deterred by the endless streams of glib words which emanate from females.
I helped teachers in classrooms at Primary school and there were boys who had trouble concentrating on paperwork. I felt they needed hands on learning more like workshops where they could learn while making things. There was just too much sitting still and female teachers do not understand that, they see it as a discipline issue.
Having all said our piece I hope some of you in the Education sphere will create some alternative action in this area. Talk is cheap.
MC
Which boy?
I was one of the last company commanders in the National Service era. A return to that concept, lengthened to at least 2 years seems now to be essential for all males 17-19. In addition to that a concept akin to British male boarding schools should also be a military role to cater for the many very under-privileged boys now so prevalent in our nation. In both functions the military role should be significantly down-played (but not ignored) in favour of the civilian requirements. In other words, sound education, emphasis on sports, fitness, self-discipline, honour, and national pride. There are undoubtably other significant matters that can be addressed in such organisations that would be of great national value.
Will we do that or anything like it.
Of course not. The trajectory we are on is like an artillery shell, arcing downwards towards a final explosion.
Schooling by the women for the girls.
Our whole society has become too feminized as well as in education. In the past it was never said girls were flawed but rather the system. Turn this around to now and we should be saying the same for boys that the system is flawed for them.
It was interesting to read neuroscience literature which pointed out boys' brains are different in size,composition, electrical activity and rate of development. Significantly in reading they are a disadvantaged compared with girls. In the past they weren't because the intensive phonic instruction taught then clearly overcame the disadvantage.
This reading issue is further reinforced by the Scottish Clackmananshire research study this century which had low SES boys achieving in reading every bit as well as girls. My conclusion is pedagogy is the main variable in reading underachievement. But then we all know that don't we ?
As an old girl, however, I must say girls are also advantaged in being more conscientious, serious-minded,and are better at managing time constraints. When I was tutoring it was exasperating seeing what self-destructive behaviours boys
have.It is big time uncool to be seen as nerds and peer pressure to steer a boy away from being studious is quite vicious.
Going through reading books from the past I notice they featured more action with strong male characters, factual, real world, how to fix and make stuff and action drama to change their world. I think we may have too much 'daisy chain making' literature with imagination and creative juices dominating but then women like Joy Cowley and Margaret Mahey were our folk heroes not Hareward the Wake or Robert Bruce. These tough guys featured in the old Progressive Readers of the 1930s.
It is curious that girls began to outperform boys in the early 1990s, but this was true across many countries and still is, of course. One view is that it is a small issue, as girls mature earlier than boys. Not very convincing, and why did this trend emerge only thirty or so years ago? Has education become feminized, as colleagues of mine have asserted? Perhaps a little but, to an extent that explains the observed disparity? Doubtful! Some boys’ schools do indeed create the impression among their sports men and star athletes that it’s almost OK to underachieve, as long as the first-fifteen and other teams are doing OK. I have seen that one first-hand in schools where I taught during the 1980s.
The NCEA and the associated curriculum can’t take all the blame. NCEA compartmentalizes learning and over-assesses children but, on the other hand, encourages extended abstract thinking and identifying links, commonalities and associations. Not that bad! But, whatever its positives and negatives, the system of assessment does not in itself explain major disparities.
Unfortunately, I feel that the Ministry has let us down in the past and especially today in relation to the Curriculum Refresh. Having worked in the education sector within Government, I see too many activists, ideologues and people who have little or no subject matter expertise moving into management and executive positions, as well as a mania for traditional knowledge and decolonization that ultimately will degrade education even more.
None of what I have said will improve the relative performance of boys, but let’s start with a robust curriculum and improved teacher training!
David Lillis
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