Date: 13 March, 2023

Male failure? In school, boys generally fare worse than girls.

“The situation of women in Spain, according to all the statistics from international organisations, is one of the best in the world, although this does not mean that it cannot be improved. At present, there are more women at university than men, school failure is mostly male, as is suicide, and the presence of women is increasingly evident in professions such as medicine, the judiciary, state administration and the highest levels of politics. In addition, our life expectancy is several years longer than that of men”.

This paragraph appears in the manifesto of Not Born Victims, launched five years ago on the occasion of Women’s Day. How are boys faring in the meantime?

Richard V. Reeves, a former advisor to the liberal Nick Clegg in Cameron’s British government, has written one of the books of the year in the US, awaiting translation into Spanish: ‘Of boys and men’. In it, this thinker, who works at the Brookings Institution think tank, argues with data that men and boys generally fare worse than women. In Spain, without such notoriety, there are authors such as María Calvo who have been dealing with this issue for years.

Male failure?

At present, there are more women than men at university and school failure is mostly male, as is suicide.

This professor at the Carlos III University has devoted several books to it, such as ‘Stolen Masculinity’, and is pessimistic about the situation of boys: “Contrary to what the majority of society unfoundedly thinks, as recent statistics show, it is girls who are the academic winners. Far from appearing shy and demoralised, today’s girls and young women overshadow boys. They get better grades. They have higher educational aspirations. Women are the stronger sex educationally.

The numbers of school failures are male-driven and are increasing all the time. Since 2017, six out of every ten graduates in Spain are women, they represent 57 percent of master’s graduates and are about to overtake men in the world of doctorates. They also tend to have higher average grades and complete their degrees faster,” explains María Calvo.

Despite these data, public and private initiatives focus on girls, for example, to encourage more female students in technology and engineering degrees, one of the few where they do not have much of a presence.

School failure

No one is concerned, however, with getting more men to study to become primary school teachers. In schools, women make up more than 80 percent of all teachers, according to official statistics. In fact, Reeves has explained in interviews about her book the hypothesis that this majority of female teachers may have something to do with part of the failure of men at school, according to various studies in the US. It may be correlation or causation, but it is undeniable that, with the vast majority of female teachers, children’s school performance drops.

Teresa Giménez Barbat, former UPyD MEP, founder of Ciudadanos and one of the signatories of No Nacemos Víctimas is currently working on a book on the subject: “People don’t want to talk about it but, at the moment, men and boys are the most discriminated against part of society. If measures are not taken very soon, we are heading for a serious social problem.

“At the moment, men and boys are the most discriminated part of society. If action is not taken very soon, we are heading for a serious social problem”.

Equality

What happens when there is inequality involving children? María Calvo explains that already in 2011, the State School Council warned about the precarious situation of boys in schools. And she concluded: “It is surprising that this problem, which is in the public domain, does not cause any social alarm or reaction in the educational community. In all the areas involved, family, educational and social, it seems that the fact that boys are doing worse at school is accepted with a certain resignation, as if it were something normal, logical or hopeless”.

It is striking, moreover, that an educational system, such as ours, oriented towards equity, capable of detecting and effectively compensating, in many cases, difficulties in the learning process, has not reacted to a variable (being male), which statistically is, clearly, a predictor of school difficulties.”

Source: Ser niño varón es una desventaja educativa,

Date: 13 March, 2023

Male failure? In school, boys generally fare worse than girls.

“The situation of women in Spain, according to all the statistics from international organisations, is one of the best in the world, although this does not mean that it cannot be improved. At present, there are more women at university than men, school failure is mostly male, as is suicide, and the presence of women is increasingly evident in professions such as medicine, the judiciary, state administration and the highest levels of politics. In addition, our life expectancy is several years longer than that of men”.

This paragraph appears in the manifesto of Not Born Victims, launched five years ago on the occasion of Women’s Day. How are boys faring in the meantime?

Richard V. Reeves, a former advisor to the liberal Nick Clegg in Cameron’s British government, has written one of the books of the year in the US, awaiting translation into English: ‘Of boys and men’. In it, this thinker, who works at the Brookings Institution think tank, argues with data that men and boys generally fare worse than women. In Spain, without such notoriety, there are authors such as María Calvo who have been dealing with this issue for years.

Male failure?

At present, there are more women than men at university and school failure is mostly male, as is suicide.

This professor at the Carlos III University has devoted several books to it, such as ‘Stolen Masculinity’, and is pessimistic about the situation of boys: “Contrary to what the majority of society unfoundedly thinks, as recent statistics show, it is girls who are the academic winners. Far from appearing shy and demoralised, today’s girls and young women overshadow boys. They get better grades. They have higher educational aspirations. Women are the stronger sex educationally.

The numbers of school failures are male-driven and are increasing all the time. Since 2017, six out of every ten graduates in Spain are women, they represent 57 percent of master’s graduates and are about to overtake men in the world of doctorates. They also tend to have higher average grades and complete their degrees faster,” explains María Calvo.

Despite these data, public and private initiatives focus on girls, for example, to encourage more female students in technology and engineering degrees, one of the few where they do not have much of a presence.

School failure

No one is concerned, however, with getting more men to study to become primary school teachers. In schools, women make up more than 80 percent of all teachers, according to official statistics. In fact, Reeves has explained in interviews about her book the hypothesis that this majority of female teachers may have something to do with part of the failure of men at school, according to various studies in the US. It may be correlation or causation, but it is undeniable that, with the vast majority of female teachers, children’s school performance drops.

Teresa Giménez Barbat, former UPyD MEP, founder of Ciudadanos and one of the signatories of No Nacemos Víctimas is currently working on a book on the subject: “People don’t want to talk about it but, at the moment, men and boys are the most discriminated against part of society. If measures are not taken very soon, we are heading for a serious social problem.

“At the moment, men and boys are the most discriminated part of society. If action is not taken very soon, we are heading for a serious social problem”.

Equality

What happens when there is inequality involving children? María Calvo explains that already in 2011, the State School Council warned about the precarious situation of boys in schools. And she concluded: “It is surprising that this problem, which is in the public domain, does not cause any social alarm or reaction in the educational community. In all the areas involved, family, educational and social, it seems that the fact that boys are doing worse at school is accepted with a certain resignation, as if it were something normal, logical or hopeless”.

It is striking, moreover, that an educational system, such as ours, oriented towards equity, capable of detecting and effectively compensating, in many cases, difficulties in the learning process, has not reacted to a variable (being male), which statistically is, clearly, a predictor of school difficulties.”

Source: Ser niño varón es una desventaja educativa, Berta González de Vega in ABC, 5 March 2023.

You can see some studies on school failure here.( https://igualesydiferentes.com/en/the-school-is-failing-with-the-children/) in ABC, 5 March 2023.

You can see some studies on school failure here.( https://igualesydiferentes.com/en/the-school-is-failing-with-the-children/)