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I believe the same is true of Canada,
Keith. Girls now outnumber boys at university. I don't however know
who outnumbers who in the various faculties - arts and humanities, sciences,
law, medicine, etc. And I don't know how to interpret this. I read
recently that girls may mature earlier than boys and you can see some evidence
when you watch the two sexes on local streets. Girls seem quite serious as
they walk by while boys are mostly preoccupied with hopping about on their
skateboards. But by the time both sexes get to university, they should be
about equally mature. Could there be, as Lawrence Summers suggested,
significant differences in the male and female brain, and could the way
education is now designed appeal more to the latter brain than the
former?
Perhaps feminist revenge is involved? When
I did my undergrad work in the 1950s, universities were the preserves of
men. Women were allowed in, but the only reason they were there was to get
their "Mrs" (supporting your point of marrying up). I knew a girl
who was enrolled in engineering. She was regarded as something of a
freak. Home economics was seen as the proper coursework for women.
You can see that generation of women and their daughters angrily thinking that
that kind of thing must never be allowed to happen again, so go show'em
daughter!
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 3:53 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Patrilocal
girls
Ed,
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
<<<<
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.
....
The
Observer -- 15 May 2005
>>>>
Keith Hudson,
Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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