Girls outperform boys across all subjects, in all age groups, and across all racial groups. They secure more university places and suffer fewer disciplinary problems. By contrast, boys are overrepresented in programs for students with special educational needs and account for around 93% of suspensions and disciplinary actions. Is the modern school system designed to benefit girls more than boys?
Yes, it does
As schools have evolved, they have incorporated learning techniques and disciplinary practices that appeal to the ways female students learn and reward their strengths.
Discovery learning
Modern teaching methods that encourage children to learn through discovery appeal to the ways girls interact with the world.
Girls experience soft discipline while boys get intense discipline
Boys and girls are have biases associated to them because of their behavioral differences. In school, the differences are even more pronounced because of the presence of adults being hands on. Because of the differences, parents and teachers often give preferential treatment.
Teachers, particularly at the primary and elementary level, are predominantly female. This robs boys of role models in the classroom and hinders academic development.
Traditionally female past times, like socializing and being creative, are encouraged and rewarded in schools while traditionally male interests, like roughousing, are punished.
The school system does not benefit girls more than boys. Boys are slower to mature, they also perform better in tests, which is a significant component of schooling. The parts of schooling that damage male learning are not attributable to the system, but to the teachers working within the system.
Slower to mature
Boys develop non-cognitive skills slower than girls. It is not the school system that lets boys down, but their biological development.
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.
Less selective education has led to skewed statistics on male academic performance. This has led many to wrongly conclude that females are outperforming males and the school system favours female learners.
Boys are underperforming in school because of the types of behaviour society encourages them to exhibit, not through any flaw or design in the school system.
