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Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

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

#301

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…

Don't forget that teachers give artificially low marks to boys for identical work. [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/education-31751672

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

#302

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…

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

#303
post #149

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...

It'd be interesting to see a time when people study why men fail at school, and are a minority of successful graduates.

I find it fun to share that my boss is a woman, her boss is a woman, and _her_ boss is too. And they're all at or past mid career and highly successful managers at a world-class technology company. JPL is a wonderful place though.

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

#304

This is anecdotal but I'm sure many people are seen this increasingly. In the past 10 years on the job, I'm seeing more guys make jokes about how stupid they are. Every time they make a single mistake they say "oh my God, if my head wasn't attached to my shoulders..." Then it becomes a competition of who has done the dumbest thing. I know it's just being playful, but you rarely see the opposite. Turn the tables, I wa…

It's the new status contest among men in technical circles. Who can self-deprecate, feign uncertainty and fake modesty in the most sophisticated way. Everyone is competing for the "nice guy" designation - or perhaps they're frightened of the "asshole" designation - and they're using deception as the means. It's reminiscent of stale scientific writing where every statement is hedged with endless caveats just so they c…

Right, it's a mating strategy probably. I'm not sure it works (we tend to select towards strong men in whatever capacity is relevant, in this case actual intelligence) but a desperate man will gladly debase himself tactically if their other wells are dried up.

People would rather be liked than respected I guess but I also think that many today can't tell the difference.

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

#305

Either you can ignore the data that suggests there are differences between girls and boys, or it might be worth considering some problem solving. E.g. at any point do we think about optimizing some learning environments for boys? When college graduation rates in the US are 70/30 girl/boy, is that okay? I know it feels weird asking the question since those ratios were flipped a few years ago, and we fixed it...

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

#306

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.

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. In my working life every time I brazenly break the rules and ignore instructions I end up getting a raise, or promotion. This is across 5 or 6 jobs stretched out over 23 years in small businesses, and fortune 100 companies. This is because I a…

Your anecdote is interesting, but without knowing how often women also break the same rules and ignore the same instructions and get results it's pretty meaningless.

I mean, good for you I guess?

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

#307

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…

At least what I read about Germany the disadvantage of boys is even bigger under male teachers.

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

#308
Do we want equality in this area? Should we change schooling to make it easier for boys than girls until we get to 50/50 achievement? Or should we retain the status quo to boost the chances of women succeeding later in their lives when they do not achieve in their careers at the same level as men?

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

#309
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It is pretty well established in psychology that women score higher in agreeableness (in the sense of the Big 5 trait). This difference is pretty small, the distributions overlap a lot, but I think, the fact, that women are more agreeable in general is pretty indisputable. As far as I know, whether the difference has biological or cultural reasons is not equally well established. But it seems somewhat stable across c…

Newer research: Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where, and Why? (2010)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004....

> How big are gender differences in personality and interests, and how stable are these differences across cultures and over time? To answer these questions, I summarize data from two meta‐analyses and three cross‐cultural studies on gender differences in personality and interests. Results show that gender differences in Big Five personality traits are ‘small’ to ‘moderate,’ with the largest differences occurring for agreeableness and neuroticism (respective ds = 0.40 and 0.34; women higher than men). In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d = 1.18), with women more people‐oriented and less thing‐oriented than men. Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender‐egalitarian societies than in gender‐inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolutionary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences.

In particular, the differences aren't "stable accross cultures" but more pronounced in more gender-equal societies, so the difference are either (likely) biological, or else caused by society but in a counter-intuitive way.

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd assume most school administrators are women. At least in the United States, this isn’t at all true. A disproportionate number of administrators (especially when adjusted for the normal male/female teacher breakdown) are male. There have also been many studies that show that teachers call on boys more, praised them more (they acknowledge girls, praise boys), and talk with them more. So your assumptions are compl…

>> I'd assume most school administrators are women. > At least in the United States, this isn’t at all true. 54% female, 46% male https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cls.asp

Interesting. Based on that data, this has likely flipped since most commenters here were in school.
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