Yet again, further to what we were discussing, the universal instinct of patrilocalism still applies (in more "primitive" societies, it is nearly always the girls, not the boys, who leave the group to get married). Thus there is a drift of brighter girls in England leaving the north for the more prosperous south leaving the dimmer boys behind.
And, another way of doing this is to get to university -- way outside one's home town. This is the principal reason why -- in my opinion -- girls are doing so much better at school than boys these days -- at least in this country. I guess it's the same in America but I wouldn't know about Canada.
Keith
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EXAM RESULTS REVEAL GENDER GULF ON SCHOOLS
Study proves boys lag far behind girls nationwide
Amelia Hill, education correspondent
The shocking extent of under-achievement by boys in some of Britain's leading schools has been revealed in a report which for the first time shows the huge differences in the performance of girls and boys across the country.
The report, which breaks down the A-level results of 1,500 schools, both state and independent, by gender, shows schools where girls are up to 115 per cent more likely to achieve an A or B grade than boys.
'This data shows there are schools that seem to be educating their students to a very high level, but which actually need to be making a major effort to get their boys up to scratch,' said Ralph Lucas, editor of the Good Schools Guide, which requested the data from the Department for Education and Skills under the Freedom of Information Act.
In 71 per cent of the 122 independent schools surveyed, girls gained more A and B grades than boys in their 2004 A-levels. Girls achieved more than 10 per cent better results than boys in one in five schools, with some of the best establishments in the country showing the widest differences: in Marlborough College, for example, just 73 per cent of boys got A and B grades compared to 93 per cent of girls.
'Parents should take this new information into account when choosing a school for their boys because this problem will definitely affect their own sons' performances,' said Lucas.
In the 1,132 state schools surveyed, girls achieved better than boys in 74 per cent of cases, achieving over 10 per cent better results in 43 per cent of schools.
The figures will reignite the debate on the performance of boys and girls in school. Although girls have regularly outperformed boys in GCSEs and A-levels, it has not been shown before how big the gap between the genders was.
In the most extreme case, City College in Birmingham, girls were 115 per cent more likely to achieve an A or B grade than boys. In London's Kidbrooke School, where Jamie Oliver recently transformed the lunchtime menu, just 15 per cent of boys achieved the top grade compared to 35 per cent of girls.
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The Observer -- 15 May 2005
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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