Live data from Hacker News

Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

phys.org

91–100 of 142 posts

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#91

> Researchers have the answer According to the article they don't "have the answer" at all - they have a couple of theories: > The study's authors say it's possible that, in reading, teachers unconsciously reward students exhibiting traditionally female behaviour, such as quietness and neatness, which make teaching easier for the teachers. Another theory is that inflated grades in mathematics are a way of trying to e…

See "conclusions" in the paper linked at the bottom. One of the theories is that teachers are over-compensating for gender bias, another is that it's just noise and marks given mid-year represent teacher's attempts at psychological manipulation more than actual grading outcomes.

It's conscious bias, and it's not fair. A lot of women teachers consciously hold boys down to promote girls.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone says this, but do actual studies that show homeschooled children have worse outcomes socially exist?

Anecdotal evidence only goes so far, but I knew 3 or 4 homeschool kids when I was growing up, and I feel like there's an answer in the fact that we never learned their names and always called them "one of those homeschool kids" That said, on the other hand multiple people I knew from high school have since overdosed. So there's a spectrum no matter what you do.

Inviting new people into your friend group is as much a learned social skill as "putting yourself out there" is. I don't mean this too harshly - you were just kids, after all - but I would posit that the fact that your friend group never bothered to learn their names says a bit more about your friend group's socialization skills than it does about the homeschooling kids'.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#93
post #9

Anecdotally I had a misandrist/sexist teacher in fourth grade. It was the first grade where they split our maths class. I didn't fail the class, but that teacher rode me extremely hard. She did do other abusive things, like encouraging students to bully each other, and she'd throw an eraser and hit me with a ruler on two separate occasions because she believed I wasn't awake enough. She recommended at the end of the…

I think we've all that misandrist teacher who tried to destroy us.

I get people are emotional animals, and women were oppressed. Some women see it as their divine right to hurt boys for the sins of their ancestors. But it's not. Leave the kids alone.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#94
post #49

We just had a baby boy and I'm not going to lie, stuff like this has me worried. We were already considering home schooling (we split time between multiple countries and that's not conducive to a normal school schedule) but this is also a good argument for it. I'd hate for biases in institutional schooling to lead him to hate school and potentially lead to poor life outcomes. And now that I think about it, there was…

I suggest reading the book Boys Adrift ( https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Adrift-Epidemic-Unmotivated-Unde... ). It speaks to exactly this topic.

Thanks for the recommendation. Reading the synopsis and reviews it does mirror some of what I've seen in society and some of the less successful/ambitious men my age that I know so has already got me curious. Will probably pick up the ebook.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#95
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let me google taht for you? https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/im-former-teac... https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/feqtuo/te... Parents send their kids to school to get an education, not be pushed propaganda.

Quoted post unavailable.

As the other guy said.. Simply because a lobby group is behind it doesnt change the message.. "your kids are being indoctrinated" - this is what is taking place in schools these days.

These groups were created because a number of parents are getting upset with what is taking place in the classrooms.

when i went to school teachers never spoke about their political views. They have a DUTY not to do this. These days, math teachers are SJW's in a classroom with a captive audience.

it is unfortunate you opted to post and state that calling out indoctrination for what it is "is part of the problem".

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#96
post #82
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Simply because some group advocates something, doesnt mean its not true. Implying this is a non-argument. Maybe youre part of the problem?

Honestly right?

No comment from them on the reddit post calling for these teachers to be terminated?

Imagine that.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#97
> The study's limitations include using grades which were awarded part-way through the school year.

I think this explains a lot more than they seem to give it credit for. It's already been established in studies that boys will tend to cram for an exam while girls will work steadily throughout the year (hence, why courses that are heavy on coursework favour girls, and those heavy on exams favour boys.)

So it's entirely possible that the girls really were ahead of the boys part-way through the year, and the boys crammed for the exams at the end and overtook the girls.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my cousins were home schooled and half of them are now not on speaking terms with their parents. Many of the kids in my college program who were home schooled were also kind of weird and sometimes socially crippled. A lot of home schooled kids are clearly from incredibly conservative religious fundamentalist families, so that's a stereotype you may have to deal with and quite potentially the type of people yo…

> kind of weird and sometimes socially crippled > A lot of home schooled kids are clearly from incredibly conservative religious fundamentalist families I wonder if anti-social tendencies are more of a function of a child's home environment, in general, and not specifically related to homeschooling (though, of course, spending more time in the home would amplify the effect of that environment on a person's upbringing…

That is probably true. I suppose the real question is what the primary goal of home schooling is. If it's primarily to prevent liberal indoctrination, I expect that will have poor outcomes. If it's primarily to avoid the hazard of daycare for teenagers and classes aimed for the lowest common denominator (no child left behind), as well as the hazards of an environment that won't let people fail and can't reasonably handle disruptive behavior (by kicking out bad students), I would expect that might lead to better outcomes.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#99

I will give you one statistic to get your head going. I studied theoretical math (long time ago, not in the US). At the university I attended, there were 17 applicants for each admission. My class was 125 people of which about 30 were men and almost a hundred were women. During first 3 semesters, the class went from 125 to 70 at the end of the first semester, 35 at the end of the second and 20 at the end of third. Ou…

i've always said this but women have much better emotional regulation compared to men at the same age, they can make themselves do things that are boring but are valuable for their future in the long term. Men, i've observed are either too into something (at the expense of everything else) or can't care at all.

Shhh if you say that at your job, you might get fired.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#100

Everyday I think more and more about homeschooling my son and daughter. In business, you should never outsource your core competency. I wonder if I really should be outsourcing the raising of my kids,that I love most in the world (of course I love my husband too).

My wife and I were both homeschooled and are homeschooling our children. Their opportunities are far more diverse than if they were in school most of the day. They don't have digital device addictions and play outside 10x most other kids. They are capable of engaging people across a wide range of ages, not just those within a year or two in age. When playing with similarly aged peers, they are consistently the leaders of play because they have more natural creativity, imagination, and, most importantly, initiative. They can fit into a system when needed, but they can also create systems on the fly because they haven't been trained to be cogs on a wheel.

As an evolutionary developmental biologist, I was trained that the key ingredient to adapting to changing environments is phenotypic diversity (diversity has to precede natural selection). If you think the current system of mass technology, mass corporations, and mass culture are sustainable and desirable, leave your children in a system originally created to meet the needs of the barons of the industrial revolution. They'll fit right in and never notice what they are missing.

Long-term, monocultures are rarely sustainable and generally quite boring. So, if you question the value of our current system (e.g., wealth/power distribution) or think it is unsustainable (e.g., global warming), you might want to raise your children outside of the system. They can always choose to conform later, but it is much harder to reacquire the true creativity that comes from not feeling the internal need to conform.

I was raised outside "the system", but entered the system to get a PhD in evolutionary computational biology and now work for a health related biotech. I got my position because I have a distinctively different approach to problems than most.

Post reply on HN