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[spork]

Interesting article in today's New York Times about women outperforming men in college:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?hp&ex=1152504000&en=1788c6468b950bc6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Most illuminating in the story for me are statements by male undergraduates, such as "I didn't know how to wake up on time without a mom."  As the article discusses, at the institutions that I have worked at, women have earned the vast majority of academic awards.  In comparison the men don't take their studies as seriously.  Or at least not in the same numbers.  The article points out that male students tend to cluster at the high and low ends of academic performance -- not as many are in the middle.  There are more women in the middle range, and more women than men at the upper end.

I believe that universities have fostered a campus culture in which males who engage in certain activities -- athletics, alcohol consumption, video game playing -- achieve high status among their peers.  Heck, when it comes to athletics, they achieve high status among administrators and trustees as well.  Females, being denied this form of status, are opting out of the dominant campus culture and focusing on learning as the route toward power, material reward, etc. -- which interestingly is what college was originally intended to be.

I personally would much prefer a campus that where 90 percent of the students are hard-working, academically-talented females.  I am tired of unintelligible, illiterate males sleeping in class because they were drinking until 4 a.m. at a post-game party.

[untenured]

Phew, I don't know if I would paint the gender divide so starkly.  I have images in my head of of male slackers and female scholars populating every classroom.  At least in my experience/classes, males and females perform roughly equal.

In any event, thanks for the article.  This was an interesting read.

Untenured

[avaya]

What struck me was that most of these guys weren't doing well ... not because of discrimination or they had to work full-time while going to school or other reasons I'd find sympathetic ... but because they didn't want to do the work.  Because it's not cool to be seen in the library.  Because they don't see the difference between an A and a B.  Because they want to play video games instead of doing homework.

It's hard for me to be sympathetic.  Obviously there are some cultural and institutional issues because it's happening across the country.  But it's a far cry from some plot to keep boys out of college and/or to keep them from doing well.

What are the causes of this "male" apathy?  And what can be done about it?

[spork]

As I mentioned, I believe male apathy is rewarded by campus culture.  Hitting the books doesn't generate admiration, girlfriends, notoriety.  Behaviors unconducive to learning do generate these rewards.  And these behaviors are accepted, if not promoted, by universities.

[mtnlover]

Very interesting article - I think maturity certainly is a factor.  The average 19-21 year old male and female seem to have different priorities.  I know this is a sweeping generalization - please don't slam me for this but I feel that the guys are about 5 years behind in the maturity factor.

[zharkov]

Very interesting article - I think maturity certainly is a factor.  The average 19-21 year old male and female seem to have different priorities.  I know this is a sweeping generalization - please don't slam me for this but I feel that the guys are about 5 years behind in the maturity factor.

I agree about maturity. My best students the past year were women, with the exception of two young men who had been away for a year in national guard training, but were more focused and disciplined.

[larryc]

It is amazing that we have so much hand-wringing about how unfair our educational system is to young women, when it so obviously the young men who are in crisis. 

[caphd]

Okay, here is something to chew on: Nearly all (say 95%) of my female colleagues and friends (who are not in academia, but in the business world) have either obtained and/or are obtaining a masters or doctorate just to compete with their male counterparts who hold no more than a bachelors, yet make more money.

Perhaps, and this is just a hypothesis, because our society is so male-dominant, particularly in the business arena, men are permitted to "skate", while women simply have to work harder and smarter to compete. I think men have been sent the message that, because they're men, their comrades will take care of them (the age-old "good ol' boys" mentality). Women are getting into this groove, too, as evidenced by the proliferation of women's networking groups and chambers of commerce. They also realize their best shot at success is self-employment, hence the huge numbers of women-owned businesses in this country.

Women are smart - they know what they have to do to succeed. That is probably why they take their studies so seriously (for the most part - I have female slackers, too).

Until the American workplace and gender-driven salary inequities are normalized, we are going to continue to see this phenomenon. If a guy can get a $100K job just for being a great jock, but a female has to show up with a PhD and is only offered $60K, we have a serious problem.

[medievalisttoo]

Thanks for the article, Spork.  It was nice to see a take on this that didn't (like so many other versions) diagnose the problem as a "feminized" education system that doesn't accomodate boys "natural" needs to be physically active at all times (according to one article, sitting still and paying attention is something that girls do better at than boys, so it's unfair to expect boys to do it), have short attention spans, and not study.  Really -- take a look at the cover story from Newsweek from a few months back, if you want a sample of this.

If I understand the NYT article correctly, than much of the problem has to do with boys not doing as well as girls at the adult skills of self-motiviation, prioritizing, and time management.  Unfortunately, this is not something that we as faculty can do much about, other than to hold the line.

[anonforthis]

I personally would much prefer a campus that where 90 percent of the students are hard-working, academically-talented females.  I am tired of unintelligible, illiterate males sleeping in class because they were drinking until 4 a.m. at a post-game party.

Obviously you have never been on my campus. Here the women swear like sailors (apologies to the U.S. Navy) and are known to be easy, if you get my drift. Most of them come to class unprepared and expect special dispensation.

I just wish for once I could teach a class without girls half dressed (bare midriffs, low cut tube tops). I wish they would leave their cellphones and iPods back in the dorm. And I REALLY wish they could write an intelligible paragraph. Unfortunately, fee can.

Illiteracy I guess applies to both genders. Too bad your anti-male bias doesn't allow you to see that.

[extinct]

I agree with most of what has been said here. In my own field, women have to work much harder to become a star in the field (not my assessment, a general consensus amongst almost everyone). Women, myself included, do intrinsically understand we are set to a different standard. I have a male colleague, who consistently misses lecture, does not complete dept paperwork, and he gets less than a slap on the hand. The viewpoint of the administration toward him is that he is a pleasant, kind-hearted man who just cannot get it together to be on time and in the classroom as scheduled. No biggie. Women in the department who do this are considered incompetent, unreliable and are punished for it.

I don't fight this fight anymore. And I think a lot of women just do what it takes to get the prize and make internal adjustments to our belief systems. As an old mentor of mine said: Men can be mediocre and do just fine, you, my dear, will need to be exceptional just to be viewed as mediocre.

College, also, is the new high school. What we see evidenced is the same attitude, a reversal of sorts. Just like high school students used to say: I will shape up in college. Now, college students are saying: I will shape up on the job.

[philoctetes]

Phew, I don't know if I would paint the gender divide so starkly.  I have images in my head of of male slackers and female scholars populating every classroom.  At least in my experience/classes, males and females perform roughly equal.

Untenured

I agree with Untenured, when they got rid of Grade 13 in Ontario (we had 5 year highschool until 2003) the atmosphere changed considerably in only a year or two. The average entrance age went from 19 years to 18 and not only did the level of preparation drop but the level of maturity, especially amongst the males dropped. Not only is a year a long time, at that age, but it used to be that the younger first year students tried to act older than their age to be accepted, now there is a whole cohort their age with which to snicker and goof off in the back row. With the young women, there is not much to notice, but adolescent females show their immaturity differently.

Frankly I think we should keep them in the secondary system until they can pass an acceptable level of exams, like the IB or the A levels in Britian, some will then go to university at 16 some at 21. Or have a intermediate stage like the CEGEP colleges in Quebec. Let students find their own level rather than making them all act like being born in the same year means that they will develop at the same time.

[crazybatlady]

Let students find their own level rather than making them all act like being born in the same year means that they will develop at the same time.

This is a brilliant idea.  Do you see the same kind of "teaching to the exams" in the UK that some have seen in the US's K-12 system?

[diana_prince]

As I mentioned, I believe male apathy is rewarded by campus culture.  Hitting the books doesn't generate admiration, girlfriends, notoriety.  Behaviors unconducive to learning do generate these rewards.  And these behaviors are accepted, if not promoted, by universities.

When I taught K-12 education, I had a mother tell me that if her son didn't learn to write coherently, it was okay since he would have a secretary. The problem with this is that a lot of people today work on projects and in teams and handle a majority of writing tasks themselves.

[philoctetes]

Let students find their own level rather than making them all act like being born in the same year means that they will develop at the same time.

This is a brilliant idea.  Do you see the same kind of "teaching to the exams" in the UK that some have seen in the US's K-12 system?

Thanks. It's really not that brilliant, it's just a rejection of a certain sort of institutionalisation.

You will always find teaching to the exam, no matter what the system. The answer is to make the exam open and comprehensive enough that that is not as much of a problem.  There is no such thing as a perfect system.

To be honest I am really mostly interested in not wasting resources teaching basic skills in universities--that's the horse I have in this race. I want good students, for my sake not theirs.