Gendered Capital: Childhood Socialization and the “Boy Crisis” in Education

Abstract

This study examined the effect of gender socialization on kindergarten grades using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. The sample consisted of 6,394 children (3,177 girls; 3,217 boys) from across the United States. MANOVA and follow-up tests revealed that both boys and girls tend to participate in gender-typed activities. Girls are more likely to have positive school attitudes and exhibit positive social behavior; boys are more likely to have negative school attitudes. Regression analyses indicated that participation in "female" activities and positive social behavior positively affect grades; participation in "male" activities has no direct effect. Positive attitudes positively affect the grades of girls; negative attitudes negatively affect the grades of boys. Teacher evaluation practices are also considered.

Predicting Day-to-Day Changes in Students’ School-Related Affect From Daily Academic Experiences and Social Interactions

“…Girls reported both more daily successes than boys and more positive daily schoolrelated affect than boys. Together, these findings are consistent with the extant literature indicating that girls receive better grades than boys in elementary school and beyond (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006;Kenney-Benson, Pomerantz, Ryan, & Patrick, 2006) and hold more positive school attitudes (Marsh, Martin, & Cheng, 2008;Orr, 2011). The finding that girls also reported more daily failures than boys is somewhat more puzzling, but may reflect the fact that girls are more likely than boys to take achievement-related feedback to heart (see Roberts, 1991, for a review), while boys may fail to encode as "failures" the sorts of academic challenges that girls report as failure experiences.…”

Trajetórias de habilidades sociais e problemas de comportamento no ensino fundamental: influência da educação infantil

“…A esse respeito, há indícios de que as professoras da EI avaliam mais positivamente as meninas, seja quanto ao comportamento ou ao desempenho (Gardinal & Marturano, 2007), e também avaliam sua relação com as meninas como mais próxima (Howes, Phillipsen, & Peisner-Feinberg, 2000). Essa experiência precoce mais positiva na EI pode, em parte, explicar o efeito favorável mais generalizado da EI sobre as meninas e se explica, por sua vez, pela infl uência da socialização na família, que prepara melhor as meninas que os meninos para se adaptarem à escola, um contexto tipicamente "feminino" (Orr, 2011).…”

The feminization of school hypothesis called into question among junior and high school students

“…Indeed, few studies have examined the assumption that the characteristics required to succeed in school are actually feminine, and the scarce studies on the relationship between school achievement and gendered characteristics showed mixed results. In a study conducted on an American kindergarten cohort, with children from high socio‐economic status families, Orr () found that, for both boys and girls, participation in stereotypical female activities (e.g., reading, doing art projects) and positive social behaviours exhibited primarily by girls (e.g., eagerness to learn, attentiveness) positively affected grades. On the other hand, stereotypical male activities (e.g., building, working on science projects) had no direct effect on grades, regardless of the students’ gender.…”

“…At first glance, it appears that the stereotypical female characteristics and behaviours are especially rewarded in school. However, the author argued that the neutral direct effect of stereotypical male activities on grades ‘may be the result of contradictory forces’ (Orr, , p. 282). Indeed, while stereotypical male activities produce undesirable behaviours (e.g., resistance to authority) that negatively affect grades, these activities may also help boys develop positive social behaviours valued in the school setting, such as problem‐solving and negotiation skills.…”

“…Intelligence is considered the most important predictor of school performance (for a review, see Spinath, Eckert, & Steinmayr, ). Teachers also cite effort as one of the top five criteria for evaluating students (Orr, ). Laidra, Pullmann, and Allik (), in a cross‐sectional study involving 3,618 Estonian students from grades 2 to 12, found that intelligence (i.e., non‐verbal reasoning ability) was the strongest predictor of students’ grade point average in all grades, followed by characteristics such as how effortful the student is.…”