Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#141

Post by mfenix » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

throwaway53086 wrote: post #31

Anyone with young boys and girls will notice that girls are much more likely to obey rules and instructions. A lot of doing well in school is about following rules and instructions, and it seems pretty natural that girls will do better. Also, most teachers are women. I haven't checked, but I'd assume most school administrators are women. It seems natural that they'd construct a system that's more suited for females t…

As the father of 6 years old twins (one boy, one girl) I agree with this 100%. My son needs more discipline than my daughter, he's more likely to get into trouble at school, he likes physical activities, etc. almost the opposite of his sister.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#142

Post by ameister14 » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #108

renewiltord wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. You can replace "work" in his text with "work for hire" or something else if it helps you understand what he meant.

Critiquing the framing doesn't mean they didn't understand.

Sure, but the manner in which they critiqued the framing shows they didn't understand, potentially deliberately.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#143

Post by endisneigh » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

aviraldg wrote: post #131

endisneigh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this take a few times and I don't really buy it. How exactly is school setup in a way that's more suitable for women compared to men? Everything you've stated (following rules and instructions, etc.) also applies in the workplace, so if you were correct you would the same sort of discrepancy in the workforce.

The rules and grading are different. In school, the rules that students are rewarded for following are "softer" and harder to justify directly. eg. You must submit a project with a cover with beautifully handwritten title of this specific size, or you lose marks (This is real guidance that was provided for my school and college projects.) At work, while these kind of rules exist, it's typically okay to break them, an…

None of this explains why women are capable of following these rules and men are not. Are you saying men are biologically predisposed to not follow such simple rules?

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#144

Post by after_care » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #100

thepete2 wrote: post #53

What's probably missing from the article is the giant caveat of almost all educational research, which is: *as measured by grades*

It's in the title. That's what it means.

Grades aren’t great at measuring real learning, but it’s the best we have.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#145

Post by tqi » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

f430 wrote: post #20

lower testosterone is beneficial - less sexual ruminations - emotional intelligence and organization - cooperation over leadership - retains better short and long term memories - female adult role model is more likely to be available and present Unfortunately HN is dominated by testosterone driven gender so its impossible to have any sort of civilized discussions about this.

I dislike this line of reasoning. Gender equality is important because equality is important in and of it self.

When people point to studies that show "teams with women perform better" as the reason to push for diverse hiring, I think it subtly implies that if this were not true then we would not need to worry about it, and creates an opening for people to quibble over research methodology.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#146

Post by 13415 » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #108

renewiltord wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. You can replace "work" in his text with "work for hire" or something else if it helps you understand what he meant.

Critiquing the framing doesn't mean they didn't understand.

That comment seems to be based on a misunderstanding of what "framing" means. Framing pertains to different ways of expressing the same facts, for example the glass is half empty vs. the glas is half full. Whether you consider work to require being hired and paid for it by an employer or understand it in a broader sense as including any activity that is important for society is not a matter of framing. These are fundamentally different concepts of work that also have different extensions.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#147

Post by esja » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

aviraldg wrote: post #113

throwaway53086 wrote: post #31

Anyone with young boys and girls will notice that girls are much more likely to obey rules and instructions. A lot of doing well in school is about following rules and instructions, and it seems pretty natural that girls will do better. Also, most teachers are women. I haven't checked, but I'd assume most school administrators are women. It seems natural that they'd construct a system that's more suited for females t…

I don't agree with the rest of your comment (my school had a pretty even mix of male and female teachers), but anecdotally the primary difference between boys and girls was exactly what you mentioned: the former were more likely to skip classes, study things that were not in the syllabus (which helps sometimes), not maintain notes as well, etc. whereas the latter would typically follow the syllabus, teachers' instruc…

Male primary school teachers are a tiny minority, and that's true globally.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#148

Post by guerrilla » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

f430 wrote: post #76

The_rationalist wrote: post #62

Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_cognition

the mind has no gender so how can cognition be considered different across genders? hmmm

The linked article is about sex differences, not gender differences.

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#149

Post by ipnon » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #78

What's the metric? Average GPA? Average graduation rate? It seems so. It is well documented that men drop out at higher rates and are in general more prone to failing. Having a few extra "zeros" in the GPA rankings would skew the mean down for males. It's tempting to say that "Girls are better than boys in academic things", but if you look at the performance of a cohort of graduates, I'd expect you'd see we're all ab…

On a random individual basis men and women perform equally well at college. On the aggregate there are now 3 to 4 million more female than male college graduates in the US.[0] And now that more women than men are enrolled in college we might expect this trend to continue.[1]

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attai...

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_302.60.a...

Re: Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

#150

Post by endisneigh » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

esja wrote: post #121

endisneigh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose this is possible - how exactly do you think teaching methods are more favorable to girls compared to boys?

A great deal of teaching is built around the idea of students sitting still in one place for a long period of time, listening intently and working quietly. Boys seem to have a lot more difficulty with this (on average) than girls do. That's one example but there are plenty of others.

yes I would agree that boys have trouble with this, as that's what the featured article effectively states. however, saying that the methods themselves somehow are predisposed to benefit women is one that I'd like to see research on.