Jennifer Buckingham: Boys' Education: Research & Rhetoric

There is significant evidence that boys have been experiencing educational disadvantage. Boys are much more likely than girls to have poor literacy skills, and this has a wide-ranging and often debilitating effect on their performance and engagement at school.

Despite resistance from the largely feminist education establishment, there have been major developments in the education of boys, particularly in the last five years. Boys' declining achievement and engagement in school have been acknowledged as real and important problems. Furthermore, some consensus has been reached among many educators and researchers regarding the major contributing factors to the decline in boys' educational performance. These include the diminishing presence of men in boys' lives and the feminisation of schooling.

In this paper, Buckingham puts foward recommendations for schools -in particular for teachers- which would help provide an environement conducive to learning and achievement for boys...

 

 

Jennifer Buckingham: Boys' Education: Research & Rhetoric. Occasional Paper 89, The Centre For Independent Studies, Sydney, 2004.