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The most interesting sentence I've read today (so far)
Our results suggest that an increase in the proportion of girls [in school] leads to a significant improvement in students' cognitive outcomes.
Here is the paper, here are non-gated versions. The estimated benefits are of similar magnitude for boys and girls. It seems that girls make the classroom a more civil place. The implication, I suppose, is that all-girl schools impose a negative externality on boys and I don't just mean from the side of beauty or fun.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 20, 2007 at 01:54 PM in Education | Permalink
Comments
The implication, I suppose, is that all-girl schools impose a negative
externality on boys...
So, more boys = environment less conducive to learning BUT what if all
girls are removed? Could it be that boys' "bad" behavior is driven by the
presence of girls? If there are no girls there is no competition for
their attention. That is my guess (grew up with ten brothers, attended an
all boys high school, and now have four boys of my own).
Posted by: Martin Kennedy at Aug 20, 2007 2:20:37 PM
Perhaps, is only the desire to impress that make grades better, If you are a nerd you can help her make her homework.
Posted by: JEAN at Aug 20, 2007 2:22:36 PM
I like the last sentence in the summary:
We find, however, no effect on individual behavior of boys or girls, which suggests that the positive peer effects of girls on classroom environment are due mostly to compositional change, namely due to having more girls in the classroom and not due to improved behavior of peers
Posted by: spencer at Aug 20, 2007 2:51:36 PM
I've noticed a similar effect in software development projects. I've worked on projects that were staffed by all guys, and I've worked on projects where I was the only guy. What I believe is that the higher the proportion of women, the less we fight, the more fun we have, and the more we get done.
Pat
Posted by: Pat McGee at Aug 20, 2007 3:05:27 PM
Lack of discipline is the defining problem of modern American public schools.
With disciplined students, you can achieve better results with larger classes and less experienced (i.e. inexpensive) teachers and administrators.
The problem is that the modern expansion of the concept of Constitutional rights, while good to check the power of government, unfortunately also checks the power of teachers to discipline.
This is probably the main reason why non-government schools can yield better results, and why their teachers are typically paid less.
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Aug 20, 2007 3:57:14 PM
My daughter's 1st grade teacher let the class get out of control and then used the girls to buffer the misbehaving boys. She couldn't understand that that was not in the best interest of the girls. She only cared that it helped to mask her incompetence.
Posted by: subrosa at Aug 20, 2007 4:10:36 PM
This is an interesting generalization of the old wisdom that girls do better in single-sex classrooms and boys do better in co-ed classrooms. It's not a difference in learning styles (directly). It's just a matter of which situation has more girls. This is really cool.
Posted by: Trey at Aug 20, 2007 4:16:24 PM
This is an interesting generalization of the old wisdom that girls do better in single-sex classrooms and boys do better in co-ed classrooms. It's not a difference in learning styles (directly). It's just a matter of which situation has more girls. This is really cool.
Posted by: Trey at Aug 20, 2007 4:17:01 PM
Been to the all-boys' school and the all-female school. There's just no comparison. I would have bribed the nuns with up to half of my future earnings to have attended the women's school, and not because I'd be the only boy. It was just more civilized, for lack of a better word.
Posted by: Jared at Aug 20, 2007 5:17:37 PM
Increasing feminisation of economics:
Now boys do not select economics for their UG and graduation and they go for engineering and management subject.90 to 95% selecting economics are girls.In some years there are only girls selecting economics (in our fresh graduate batch, there is not even a single boy).The subject specific sex-ratio favours girls in our subject.
Posted by: GVV at Aug 20, 2007 7:14:03 PM
Increasing feminisation of economics:
Now boys do not select economics for their UG and graduation and they go for engineering and management subject.90 to 95% selecting economics are girls.In some years there are only girls selecting economics (in our fresh graduate batch, there is not even a single boy).The subject specific sex-ratio favours girls in our subject.
Posted by: GVV at Aug 20, 2007 7:14:52 PM
Women civilize men, that is obvious.
A society with out women would look like prison at worse and the military at best.
Posted by: Dragon Horse at Aug 20, 2007 9:01:50 PM
So this would be a good consequence of women beginning to outnumber men in college attendance.
Posted by: Roy Haddad at Aug 20, 2007 11:45:23 PM
Yes - I'd agree - up to a certain point. That point is when there are so many girls or girl-standards are so institutionalized, the boys are being penalized for standard boy-behavior.
As for single-sex schools and classes, they are great as long as their original mandate is adhered to. However, I am old enough to have been in my teens at a time when the great Ivy League women's colleges became all fluffy-bunny and explicitly trained women to be the wives of high-achieving men rather than high-achieving women. The backlash against that, in the 1960, killed a lot of them as womens' colleges.
Plus - for those of us with systematizing aka 'male' brains- how in the world do you get into MIT with "Math for Girls" on your resume? I think even "The Simpsons" has addressed that one.
Posted by: Pat Mathews at Aug 21, 2007 8:52:10 AM
The previous male-dominated society hardly recognized the females’ willingness to get education and make a career in social environment. Males could hardly have preferred seeing their female partners as successive career-goers at work places rather than stay-at-home moms and housewives. Now gone are those days when education institutions were closed to women, but the difference in education attitude and performance between males and females is significant.
Posted by: tony at Aug 22, 2007 1:04:41 AM
I am told that girls tend to be more obedient than boys (i.e. it is easier to force girls to obey you).
School want to force their inmates to learn (some) things.
I can see a connection here...
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