There’s a new viewpoint on what’s driving the half century old gender gap in high school graduation and college enrollment rates. Instead of just lining up the usual suspects–lazy boys, feminist teachers favoring girls, the rise of the women’s movement, the lack of male role models, single parent homes, etc.  Add one more.
According to a new study by Professor Judith Kleinfeld of the University of Alaska in the current edition of Gender Issues a new dimension to consider is home environments’ and parents’ influence on youngsters–and the perhaps resulting mindsets of the youngsters themselves. Many researchers in this field seeking to investigate the current almost 3 to 2 ratio of females to males enrolled in college have sliced and diced high school student populations first by gender and then racially–designating them as whites, blacks, Latinos, native Alaskans, native Americans and Asians. Dr. Kleinfeld’s team, however, added a new dimension: parents educational levels and the students own views and attitudes towards higher education.
In publishing them she also noted that they are based on research done in two urban Alaskan communities and should be replicated in other more diverse areas.
Dr. Kleinfeld is co-chair of the April 7, 2010 consortium of scholars roundtable discussion which will prepare the groundwork for the First International Conference on Male Studies to be held in September of the same year.
That conference will be devoted to encouraging the formation of male studies departments offering majors in the field at US universities. Currently there are no such departments while there are hundreds of colleges and universities with women’s studies departments.
The most striking example of the split between parents’ attitudes regarding their children’s continuing education was between families who had experienced college education and those who had not. Where parents were college graduates, for their offsrping–both boys and girls– attending college was a given, something they were supposed to and would do. In contrast children of parents who had not attended college reported there were major differences between parents’ attitudes towards their sons and daughters.
Only 29 percent of the boys said they were encouraged to pursue college preparatory courses and to attend college as compared to 70 percent of the girls who said they were urged to seek college educations. In fact, 18 percent of the boys said they received pressure against continuing their educations. The report noted “A typical comment from one boy was that his brothers and father told him he could make lots of money in trade jobs and that he didn’t want an office job because his brothers would think it was a fruity job for a guy.”
Paradoxically while showing little interest in going forward with their educations, many of the sons of working class parents also eschewed pursuing technical training for vocations in the trades — electricians, plumbing, roofing, etc. They were not interested in pursuing trade jobs and would not fill out applications for training even when encouraged to do so by school guidance counselors.
Instead, according to Dr. Kleinfeld many “”expresed interest in implausible ‘dream jobs’, such as designing video games, owning a recording studio, directing movies or becoming music stars.” At the same time she added they had no idea of how get into those occupations nor of what salaries were in occupations in which they might get jobs nor of even the earnings required to support themselves. The dire consequences presented by such a lack of awareness was noted in the study. Namely, that over the past four decades there has been a 26 percent decline in real income for male high school graduates and 38 percent decline for men who did not graduate.
These drops have occurred as jobs, many of which required greater physical strength usually associated with men, have declined. For example, at the end of World War II, farming accounted for 14.5 percent of all US jobs. It now employs only 1.6 of the work force. Manufacturing employment fell over the same period from 27.2 percent to 10.5 percent. Currently, as increased schooling becomes ever more critical in gaining employment, the report cites the declining achievement of males in all areas of education from completing high school to college post graduate and the attainment of professional degrees when contrasted with the achievements of women.
The lackluster performance of males in comparison to that of females is shown by the most recent figures for all racial groups over virtually all educational measures beginning with bachelor’s degrees and continuing through to graduate and professional degrees with the only exception being for professional degrees in which hispanic men score higher than hispanic women.
For example, typical educational achievements are:
- Among Whites, women obtained 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees
- Among Blacks, women obtained 66 percent of bachelor’s degrees
- Among Hispanics, women obtained 61 percent of bachelor’s degrees.
“The increasing post-secondary achievement of women is cause for celebration,” the study notes, but continues with a caveat. “At the same time, men and especially minority men are less likely to earn the degrees which will enable them to earn a good living, stay employed, marry, and be attractive to the increasing numbers of highly educated women.”
Students in the study were well aware of the gender gap in their studies. their views of it focused in three themes. The first was that the boys were lazy as one girl reported “Guys have the brains but they don’t want to put forth the effort,” while a boy summed it up with “guys are guys…It’s the slacker generation. girls have a certain drive that we don’t have.”
The second theme was that boys don’t plan ahead. As one boy put it “Ladies know what they want. They set goals and they go for it. Girls plan weeks in advance, guys wake up and see what happens.”
The third theme coming out of the student interviews was that the boys are easily distracted and prone to peer pressure. It cited one girl’s view that “Guys have more interests outside of school, like video games or hanging out…Like my brother, he really got sucked into games on the internet and that takes up a big part of his life. ”
Overall, “laziness” was mentioned most by males in explaining the differences between boys and girls in school performance. In summing up her report, Dr. Kleinfeld wrote “The Women’s Movement has done an admirable service for young women, increasing their achievement in areas where they were behind, such as mathematics and science, alerting teachers to their needs, and encouraging them to go to college and pursue a range of careers. The women’s movement, above all, has stimulated the imaginations of girls and young women, who see new possibilities for success and for making a difference. We need now to turn our attention to the many young men who are falling behind and developing a self-defeating image of themselves as ‘lazy slackers’.â€Â
The study noted that in intereviews, 76 percent of daughters of working class parents said their familes encouraged their college plans while only 41 percent of sons said they received such positive support when the subject of college came up. Other explanations for the gender gap emphasize the influence of the Women’s Movement in raising women’s expectations for achievement and economic independence (Goldin, Katz, & Kuziemko, 2006).
What has not been measured or studied, however, is how the prevailing culture of misandry has affected the self image and expectations for the future of young men, or indeed how it might influence even the expectations of their parents regarding education and a host of other factors related to their overall success and well being in life.
This dearth of information speaks to the need for more intensive academic focus on male studies and further analysis of the social consequences of misandry.
For the complete text of the Kleinfeld article, read here.
Dick Elfenbein is the Education Editor for Men’s News Daily and the research director  The On Step Institute.
