Making Minds Matter with Bill Costello » Gender Gaps

America’s Education Gender Gap

Bill Costello — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:14:09 +0000

In American schools, boys are underachieving and girls are excelling. This gender gap in academic achievement is evident as early as kindergarten. The longer students are in school, the wider the gap becomes.

Boys are more likely than girls to earn poor grades, be held back a grade, have a learning disability, get suspended or expelled, [...]

College Gender Gap Grows Wider

Bill Costello — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:27:46 +0000

According to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: “Women were more likely than men to be enrolled in college and were more likely to have received a bachelor’s degree. Twenty-nine percent of women were attending college during the October when they were age 22, compared with 25 percent of men. Moreover, [...]

Men Gaining More from Marriage

Bill Costello — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:43:01 +0000

A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that in the U.S. wives are better educated than their husbands in nearly a third of marriages and make more money than their husbands in 22 percent of marriages, up from 4 percent in 1970. In other words, increasing numbers of men are marrying smarter, wealthier [...]

China’s Schools Dominated by Boys

Bill Costello — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:22:23 +0000

A new study published in the British Medical Journal finds that China had 32 million more males than females under the age of 20 in 2005.

Industrialized countries typically had 107 male births for every 100 girls in 2005; however, it was 119 to 100 in China. There were 1.1 million excess births of boys.

China’s gender [...]

Boys Abound in China

Bill Costello — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:28:00 +0000

China’s one-child policy, which limits couples to having just one child, was established in 1979.

Since then, many Chinese couples have practiced abortion to avoid giving birth to a girl. As a result, China has the world’s largest ratio of boys to girls. This gender imbalance is now evident in schools around the country.

Women Dominate Colleges

Bill Costello — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:37:39 +0000

According to a Pew Research Center report released this week, women constitute 53 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college. In this age group, women have been the majority of college students since 1987.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds, 42.3 percent of women and 37 percent of men are enrolled in college.

Among college students of all ages, the U.S. Census Bureau reports [...]

UK Boys Falling Behind in Reading

Bill Costello — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:16:54 +0000

Girls, on average, are better readers than boys in every country in the world. The UK is no exception.

The Daily Mail reports that roughly 25,0oo UK boys aged 14 have the reading age of a nine-year-old. It will be extremely difficult for these boys to catch up.

The article:

Secondary schools were also given ‘books for boys’ including spy novels and [...]

Closing the Gender Gap on Reading

Bill Costello — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:34:57 +0000

Dr. Don Klinger, associate professor of education at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada is trying to figure out why boys, on average, do not read as well as girls.

For the past two years, he has been researching the reading gender gap in Ontario as part of a project with the Education Quality and Accounting Office, [...]

Taiwanese Boys Lag Behind Girls in Reading

Bill Costello — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:28:08 +0000

A major problem facing Taiwan is that boys there do not perform nearly as well as girls in reading. As an educational researcher, I have been trying to understand why.

Taiwanese students earn scores among the highest in the world in science and math, though they do not perform as well, as a whole, in reading. [...]

America’s Reading Gender Gap

Bill Costello — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:24:06 +0000

The good news is that reading scores for 9- and 13-year-olds are the highest ever according to results recently released from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The bad news is that boys trail girls in reading performance at all age levels. The gap at age 9 is 8 points, at age 13 is 8 [...]

Education Gender Gaps in Japan

Bill Costello — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:21:17 +0000

On international assessments of educational performance, Japan is one of the top performing countries in science and math.

The two primary international assessments that examine the performance of students in science and math are the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The former assesses science and math [...]

Where the Education Gender Gap is Leading America

Bill Costello — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:32:17 +0000

As early as kindergarten, a gender gap in academic achievement is evident in American schools. Girls are excelling; boys are underachieving. The longer students are in school, the wider the gap becomes.

Boys’ academic performance relative to girls has been plummeting for decades. Boys are more likely than girls to earn poor grades, be held back [...]