Of Books and Boys

GUYS READ is primarily represented by its Web site, which offers educators and parents tips on how to encourage boys in their reading. Joe Scieszka urges librarians and teachers to look closely at their book inventory and consider its level of boy-appeal. Booksellers are encouraged to have male staff members create favorite book lists and displays of books that guys would like. The site reminds adults that newspapers, magazines and comic books can offer worthwhile reading and are often more appealing for boys than traditional literature. And adults who care for boys are encouraged to read books on boys’ psychology to help them understand boys’ different ways of learning and interacting with books. 
  
Like many people who study kids’ reading habits, Scieszka notes that boys are attracted to nonfiction, fantasy and humor books. He is quick to add that many boys love anything that has to do with body noises and are loathe to touch any book that appears remotely feminine.

In fact, Scieszka suspects gender roles may partly explain why many boys don’t read as well as girls. Like many people that study boys, Scieszka cites a culture that narrowly defines what it means to be a man, and that leaves women largely in charge of boys in their impressionable developing years. ...

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http://www.connectforkids.org/benton_topics1544/benton_topics_show.htm?doc_id=150588

A Culture of Louts?

(First published in the Georgia Straight, February 12, 1998, under the headline "Why Are Boys Dumber?") by Crawford Kilian

As if educators didn't have enough to worry about, they're now growing concerned about how badly boys are doing in high school. Then again, maybe they're not concerned enough.

Pat Clarke, a former president of the BC Teachers' Federation, raised the alarm locally a year ago. After a dozen years in administrative posts, Clarke returned to the classroom in 1995 and was startled at the changes he found. Not only were boys doing worse academically, but girls were now dominating the whole school culture: running the clubs, the student council, everything.

What had caused this change in schools since the early 1980s? "That's a bit of a puzzle," Clarke says. "But there's a pervasively influential 'boy culture,' and some boys are allowing this to marginalize them."....

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http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/cmns/louts.html

Media Literacy Goes to School

We've wired our classrooms. Now what? Media Literacy education is needed, kindergarten through college. The question is what kind.
 
Several years ago, I told a sixth-grade class that I often consulted with games companies and asked what they would like to tell the people who developed their favorite games. All around the room hands shot up. The kids asked hard questions about the influence of game violence, the impact of technological developments, how and why games tell stories, the nature of interactive entertainment, and the economic motives shaping the games industry. The girls challenged the boys to explain why so few games appealed to girls. The students spoke with confidence and passion; they made compelling arguments; they supported their positions. The astonished teachers told me that the most articulate kids here had not opened their mouths all term. ...

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http://www.technologyreview.com//articles/04/01/wo_jenkins010204.asp

School Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse

Various authors suggest different solutions to end the "misery of boys" and the "suffering of men," as some put it.
 
The authors suggest various ways to help boys who are having problems at school. We have grouped the many suggestions into seven thematic sub-categories, the top four being gender-based intervention, segregation of classes or schools, increased interaction of men with boys to serve as role models, and improved programs to reflect the needs of boys. The other categories, though less well-represented, are nonetheless noteworthy. They advocate returning to traditional values, setting quotas and launching advertising campaigns.....
 
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http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/0662882857/200303_0662882857_14_e.html

Study says boys do read, they just don't read books

Teachers should allow boys to bring Pokémon trading cards into the classroom, let them go on Internet chat rooms and encourage them to relate school texts to television shows such as the Simpsons, the author of a new study on boys and literacy says...
 
(more....)
.http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~hounselld/boysdoread
 
 

Boy's Own Story

A boy's day is like a comic strip, full of conquest and bravado. Every boy is a superhero. But ask most boys and they'll say they'd rather live the adventure than read about it.

This is the story of too many boys who don't read enough, and why passing it off as "boys will be boys" doesn't cut it.....
 
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/gendergap/

Study says boys may actually be literate

Boys are dumb – or so girls say anyway. However, a recent study on boys and literacy suggests boys are merely interested in different texts than girls.....
 
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http://www.usc.uwo.ca/gazette/2003/january/31/news2.htm
 
 

Why Boys Must Be Boys:Is your son’s school giving him what he needs to succeed?

Many problems experienced by boys in the classroom stem from being normal boys in a setting that’s not designed to handle them.
 
The way North American schools teach boys puts them at risk of underachieving, says Michael Gurian, an educator, child advocate and author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently! “Reading and writing don’t come as naturally to boys as they do to girls, not initially,” he says. “Many of us have felt this instinctively, and schools are finally coming to recognize it: Boys and girls don’t learn the same way or at the same rate.” 
  
  (more....)
http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2002/05/boys.html

Masculinities matter

Masculinity issues are central to working effectively with boys in schools. Traditional ideas about men and masculinity have been unsettled in recent decades by social and economic shifts in the western world. Significant impacts have included changes in employment, new family roles and formations, and increasing rates of change itself.

Change has brought uncertainty and a range of responses. Some sections of the men's movement call for the reinstatement of particular masculine and feminine roles. Others argue that just as feminism challenged women with new possibilities, men too have much to gain as they grapple with diverse masculinities and change.
 
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Key issues

Schools help to construct concepts of masculinity so gender construction at school needs to be understood.
Recent research offers new perspectives on masculinity.
Should we do more for the social development of boys?
What are the markers of masculinity?
How do boys experience masculinity? Boys' experiences of masculinity
What does sport mean to boys? Boys and sport
What do boys think about schoolwork? Boys and schoolwork
What do boys understand about girls? Boys versus girls
What about homophobia?
Why it's important for men to get involved - Men working with boys
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Boys & Literacy:Ignite your son's imagination with reading and writing

Do boys face unique issues when it comes to literacy? not necessarily, but some boys need special support when it comes to things like appreciating reading, writing and the expression of feelings. Here's how parents can help their sons. 
 
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http://www.peel.edu.on.ca/lyndwood/boys_and_literacy.htm

Lifting literacies

The development of literacy skills is of fundamental importance for all students. This is increasingly so as employment shrinks in trades and manufacturing, but grows in the service sector where highly developed communication and interpersonal skills are in demand.

The relative literacy achievements of boys and girls on basic skill tests have received extensive media coverage, creating a popular perception that there is a crisis in boys' literacy. For most boys this is not the case. Many develop strong literacy skills, but some boys (and girls) are struggling.

Gender alone is not a strong predictor of literacy achievement, but it acts in concert with other factors, increasing risk for particular individuals or groups. Schools are also recognising that new times demand new literacies. As technology creates forms of communication not dreamed of in the print-based past, many students, particularly boys, are using computer-based literacy practices not traditionally taught at school. We need to embrace multiliteracies so that our students are well prepared to be active and informed citizens in a diverse and changing world.

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How are boys doing in literacy?
Worries about boys' literacy have a long history.
What are boys saying about English?
Some questions for literacy teachers.
How do gender theories link with boys and literacy?
Masculinity versus literacy - is it a battle?
What counts as literacy at school?
Productive pedagogies help teachers address gender.
Encourage students to start questioning gender in texts.
An integrated approach works best.
Some advice for school action on literacy.  

Getting to grips with gender

Gender is at the core of many concerns held by, for and about boys. Consequently, a clear approach on gender issues provides schools with a coherent way to work on those concerns.

In fact all students can benefit if schools are inclusive, supportive and safe. A commitment to gender equity provides a good basis for working respectfully with diverse student groups.

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Key issues :  

 It is important to understand that sex and gender are not the same.
Understanding gender looks at three different theories about how gender identity develops.
We are always and actively involved in the social construction of gender.
Understanding gender construction helps us work in schools more effectively.
Opening up the 'rules of the game' creates good gender policies for schools 

Is there a crisis in boys' education?

Judged by the federal government's report, Boys: Getting it right, the answer is "yes". Whether it be retention rates, year 12 results, being able to read and write or the incidence of behavioural problems leading to suspension and "dropping out", boys, when compared to girls, are increasingly at risk.
 
Why are boys disadvantaged? The first thing to note, as highlighted in the report, is that the way literacy is taught guarantees failure for many boys. Until the advent of "whole language" (where children are taught to "look and guess"), literacy was taught in a more structured way associated with a phonics approach....
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=679

It's time to shed the blinkers and look at boys' and girls' educational needs.

Many of the voices we hear about the way we deal with boys' education are speaking from battle-positions; boys versus girls, to put it in its crudest form. You hear this at its fiercest when the debaters focus on allegations of "the feminisation of the curriculum". One side defends educational reforms to improve girls' learning and self-esteem which were introduced in the 80s and 90s, asserting that this course should be maintained due to the ruthless oppression of females by males in our culture. The counter- attack says that the "femi-nazis" have ground men and boys into the dirt by insisting that they be like females, so no wonder they are depressed, bitter, violent and suicidal.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=763

The inquiry into educating boys: getting it right some of the time

Several explanations can be given for the neglect of boys' educational decline. One explanation is that it was not until the late 1990s that the differences in achievement levels between boys and girls could be confidently described as significant and sustained. Another explanation is that some of the most influential people and organisations in the education industry and in academia were, and still are, resistant to the idea that boys should be given special attention.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=969

The boys deserve a better chance at school as well as in life.

Where masculinity was once considered a virtue, it is now seen by many boys as an obstacle to be overcome. Boys on average are achieving at significantly lower levels than girls in all areas of the assessed cognitive curriculum from early primary to late secondary school.
 
Our concern should not be so much that girls are doing better than boys - it's about time - but rather that boys are represented more than two to one in the bottom quartile. They are also not doing as well as boys did 30 years ago.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1993

Hang on, school is one of the few places where boys don’t do well

They don’t do well at reading and writing; they don’t stay on at school in the same numbers as girls – and they make up only about 43 per cent of university students.

This underachievement of young boys is in stark contrast to other areas of endeavour. The further boys leave school behind, the greater their levels of success. Whether it is at advanced levels of academic study, promotion to the top jobs, or running the country, it has escaped no one’s notice that outside school, boys do much, much better than the girls.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2099
 

Boys in schools: how to lift their game.

The inquiry into the education of boys was referred to the Standing Committee on Education and Training because of growing community concerns about the relative underachievement of boys and the apparent growing disparity between the achievement of boys and girls, in school education particularly, and concerns that social and economic changes over the past two decades have more adversely affected boys in education than girls. Having said that, though, we acknowledge that not all girls have coped well with these changes and that policies already in practice have not always worked to the benefit of girls either. But the focus of this report is on the education of boys.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=970

The Boys' and Girls' Literacy Project

The Boys' and Girls' Literacy: Closing the Gap project aims to address the literacy performance of boys, yet not at the expense of girls.  The goal of this project is to provide additional strategies to assist boys in the English Language Arts program.  The interventions are an attempt to alleviate the discrepancy between male and female literacy performance.  The project is both reactive and proactive. The Project was conducted by literacy educators and researchers who came together to explore the school literacies of children in grade four and five over a two year period. Presently we are at the pilot stage of research and are working with male mentors who are doing reading circles in the pilot school.
 
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http://people.stu.ca/%7Eedresearch/boysngirls.html
 

Boys, books and stories - how boys relate to reading.

 
 
I’m not sure why there’s so much fuss about boys and their reading habits. Maybe it has something to do with their over-representation in crash statistics and suicides. Maybe there’s some sort of subliminal link between how boys perform in life and how much they read. I guess that could be true at school but it’s a bit of a stretch to see it affecting their life choices and their sense of wellbeing.
 
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2336

Canadian Adolescent Boys and Literacy

The purpose of this research study is to better understand issues of gender in classrooms in relation to language and literacy, particularly for adolescent boys in Canadian urban multicultural classrooms. Through this study we are examining how early adolescent boys in urban Canadian schools construct their gender identity in their talk, in their writing, and through their reading.

Over the past several decades there has been an increasing concern in North America that girls are being short-changed in their schooling; in more recent years questions have been raised in the western world about the nature of schooling for boys. While not disregarding the seriousness of gender inequities for girls in school, we want to explore the gender issues that exist for boys regarding school literacy. The research indicates concerns for boys in educational settings, e.g., boys don’t view education positively, they don’t like to read, some don’t read very well, and a growing percentage of boys are “failing” at school. Boys are faced with many contradictions between school literacy practices and societal expectations regarding masculinity.
 
The recognition that literacy is a socio-cultural construct has increased our awareness of the importance of gender in learning to be literate.  With the current concerns about boys faring badly in school, we believe that it is important to do in-depth research into their literacy practices in order to better assess if and how Canadian schools may be shortchanging or failing boys.
 
 
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http://www.education.ualberta.ca/boysandliteracy/findings.html
 

What is Literacy?

 
What we're beginning to see now is what we saw with the girls: the birth of all kinds of different strategies to get boys back to books. Educator and English professor David Booth of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education suggests: don't be a snob about literature. Boys are not being asked to read, Booth says.
 
"That's a big problem. There is such a variety of books in a library, for example, and boys who read easily and read well would find great resources here, lots of fun here for them. But for lots of boys this [a library] isn't where they live. That's a big problem.
 
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/gendergap/literacy.html

Boys demonstrate literacy in ways the current curriculum doesn't assess.

Boys' failure in schooling, particularly areas of literacy, is increasingly alarming educators and parents. Educational research in Canada, Australia, Great Britain and United States has indicated concerns for boys. For example boys don't view education positively, don't like to read, and often don't read very well. In some countries, more boys are "failing" at school and fewer of them are going on to post-secondary education. Debate about the seriousness of these claims continues to grow. However, the data may not tell the full story.

Boys are faced with many pressures ....... 
  
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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=962

Boys and literacy: We can do better

Narrowing the gender gap would raise reading levels
 
With this so self-evident, it would seem that, at the very least, we as a society have been complacent about the less-than-literate boys of our culture. At the most, we have been practicing a form of gender bias. What the disproportionate attention paid to girls' schooling problems says is: Boys' deficiencies matter less, because boys matter less
 
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http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/gm990318.htm

Men and Book Clubs

Not many men start or join bookclubs. Yet the phenomenon worldwide has been enormously popular with women, in part due to Oprah Winfrey.
 
Why aren\'t men reading? Or are they reading, but secretly? And is it just the stereotypical male, beer in hand and patting his beer gut with the other, who is not reading?
 
(m0re....) http://www.achieveonline.com.au/article/articleview/160/1/10/

Boys and Reading

Recently there has been much concern voiced over the inability of many of our male students being unable to read or write to the same level as female students. This area has been overlooked for some time as there was a major push in the early 90’s to make our female students more academically competent in the areas of mathematics and science.

Now that there are many programs in place to enhance the learning of females in the traditionally male dominated areas of mathematics and science, it is finally the turn of the male students to be given help to become more literate.
 
 (more....)http://www.achieveonline.com.au/article/articleview/236/1/4/

Addressing the academic needs of boys

 A survey of teachers attending a national education symposium in Sydney recently has revealed that Year 9 boys are considered the most difficult of all students to teach. What the symposium also found was that the problem may not necessarily be based solely on the gender issue, but also on the ‘effectiveness’ of teachers and their ability to meet the changing needs of boys.

As one of the symposium’s key speakers, Dr Ken Rowe, a principal research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, suggested that appropriate and ongoing professional development was one very effective means of meeting this challenge. Another theory he put forward was the need to make the curriculum more attractive to boys and conducive to the way they learn most effectively. 
  
  
(more....) http://www.achieveonline.com.au/article/articleview/246/1/10/

Positive Progress in Underperformance by Boys at School.

"Boys feel the system is against them. A girl under duress can call out for help, cry, they are better at verbalising their distress.Boys do not ask for help, they act out, and the schools where they spend such a significant amount of time are increasingly feminised institutions. In primary schools, for example, there are almost no men, and this is a problem for boys…..boys need more male teachers in schools......"  (Peter West)   
  
(more....)          http://www.achieveonline.com.au/article/articleview/269/1/1/

How to teach male students

Allowing boys to bring personal knick-knacks to school, painting classroom walls warm colours and giving boys lockers will help them enjoy their learning, says a visiting education expert. ....

http://www.achieveonline.com.au/article/articleview/292/1/0