Does the school system benefit girls more than boys?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Does the school system benefit girls more than boys?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, it doesn't
Argument‹3 of 6›: 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.

The argument

The claim here is not that the school system is neutral in its effects, but that it contains advantages running in both directions, and that which of them dominates depends on how a course is structured. Examinations, on this account, suit the way many boys work. Taking tests taps into the competitive nature of young boys; the public display of achievement motivates them to work harder, and they thrive under the stresses of exam season rather than being undone by them. The result is that boys tend to outperform females on tests — an advantage that comes not from the material being examined but from the format in which it is assessed. Girls are said to be disadvantaged by that same format. They experience higher levels of exam stress, which hinders their performance, so a timed and public examination ends up measuring something other than what they know. What suits them is the opposite arrangement: working at their own pace, often in collaboration with others. Given those conditions they do better, which is why their relative strength shows up in classroom tasks and on coursework. The two observations are one observation seen from either side. The method of assessment is doing work that is easily mistaken for ability, and each method rewards a different way of working. A syllabus weighted towards terminal examinations hands the advantage to one group; a syllabus weighted towards continuous assessment and coursework hands it to the other. So the school system as a whole is not built to favour boys or girls. Depending on the course structure, sometimes boys have the advantage and sometimes girls do — and a system that contains both kinds of assessment, distributed differently across subjects, cannot fairly be described as one that benefits girls more than boys.

Context

There is evidence to suggest that girls may do better in the classroom, but boys do better at testing. Therefore, depending on how courses are structured, sometimes female students have the advantage, but just as often, male students have the advantage.

Premises

[P1]Boys tend to thrive under exam conditions, where competition and public achievement motivate them to outperform girls on tests. [P2] Girls tend to perform better in classroom tasks and coursework, where collaborative, self-paced work suits them. [P3] Course structures vary in their balance of exams and coursework, so the advantage shifts between boys and girls depending on assessment type. [C] Therefore, the school system does not systematically benefit girls more than boys.

Counter-arguments

If boys do better on tests and girls do better on coursework, why aren’t courses designed to give equal weight to both? Very few courses are designed to grade students on their classwork and exams in equal measure. Most are weighted towards one format or the other. If we know that boys perform better on tests and girls perform better on coursework, the only way to build a fair and equal school system is to ensure that both are prominent assessment components.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] If the school system wanted to be fair, it would ensure that all courses are assessed with equal parts coursework and equal parts testing.