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Girls perform better academically in almost all countries (2015)

economist.com

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

#321

Post by garmaine »

jacobolus wrote: post #292
mfenix wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> son needs more discipline This does not seem like the right conclusion. More like "needs running around time and free play". Cf. e.g. https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/discipline-problem-solutio... https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/beyond-discipline-article/

You made a lot of assumptions in that assessment.

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

#322

Post by inglor_cz »

standardUser wrote: post #271
amelius wrote: post #125

Then why do boys/men seem better at inventing things (edit: from past statistics)?

I am sure that if men were had been subjugated by women for all of civilization the outcomes might have been a little different. We'll never know, since the only civilization we know is one that has oppressed women for its entirety.

Jewish people were subjugated and kept in ghettos for a millennium or so, even subject to pogroms and genocides.

All this suffering did not seem to reduce their academic and technological aptitude.

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

#323

Post by tomp »

ipnon wrote: post #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?

I often considered that... in particular, because I (as a white male) am more bothered by the girl-boy discrepancy than by the black-white-Asian discrepancy (in the US).

Why? Is it just self-serving prioritization?

Reflecting more, I don't think it is. I'm naively assuming that the girl-boy difference is likely biological (either female brains are different than male brains, or the differences in sex & reproduction result in equivalent human brains pursuing different life strategies in different bodies), while black-white-Asian difference is likely social, probably related to culture and poverty level (i.e. no brain differences).

It follows that in order to optimize for social good & progress, we should adapt the education system so that both female-ish and male-ish types of brains flourish (note that there is likely significant overlap) yet we should help people out of poverty (which might involve changing education, but also probably other, much more significant efforts) and change culture (make schooling & achievement more important and popular) to reduce white-black-Asian gap.

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

#324

Post by DC1350 »

standardUser wrote: post #265
throwgender123 wrote: post #212

I've noticed throughout my life that negative outcomes that primarily affect females (math test scores, wage gap, etc) are Huge Problems That Demand Immediate Action, and negative outcomes that primarily affect males (language test scores, life expectancy gap) are just kind of how it is. I'm not bitching about it or pushing an agenda, but it's not subtle.

Generally speaking, the clearly oppressed and disadvantaged group is the one we focus on in terms of equity. Men are not, nor have they ever been, that group.

Men are the disadvantaged group when you look at things they do worse than women though. There’s no such thing as being disadvantaged overall.

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

#325

Post by hntrader »

This could be a consequence of the variability hypothesis[1] interacting with the way grades are distributed.

If grades tend to have a lot of negative skewness, that means that it pays to be in a group that has the least number of extreme underperformers, since your group's outperformers are handicapped due to the upper bound existing near the mean.

That means we expect men to underperform in domains that have lots of negative skewness in the outcome distribution, assuming [1] holds.

In domains where there's a lot of positive skewness in the outcomes distribution, we would expect the opposite result.

As a first step, we would want to check how grades are actually distributed in the raw data, and whether there is an inter-country correlation between its grades' skewness and its male-to-female differences.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis

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

#326

Post by inglor_cz »

endisneigh wrote: post #2

How is it possible that girls perform better academically (in 2015) yet are under represented in the top tier of jobs? Either women have no interest in money, academic skills have no bearing in getting high paying jobs, or discrimination is more prevalent then you’d think. I suppose all three could be true.

I decided to underrepresent myself in the top tier of jobs because I do not want to live a life of a workaholic. You won't get into the top tier by doing 40 hours of work weekly.

Perhaps women have better work/life balance on average.

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

#327

Post by wonnage »

amelius wrote: post #293
wonnage wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where did you get that idea

Just think of any random invention, then look up on Wikipedia who was the inventor. Repeat a bunch of times, and you get the idea. (And please don't respond with cherry-picked examples.)

Why do you think the explanation is that men are better inventors?

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

#328

Post by busterarm »

standardUser wrote: post #265
throwgender123 wrote: post #212

I've noticed throughout my life that negative outcomes that primarily affect females (math test scores, wage gap, etc) are Huge Problems That Demand Immediate Action, and negative outcomes that primarily affect males (language test scores, life expectancy gap) are just kind of how it is. I'm not bitching about it or pushing an agenda, but it's not subtle.

Generally speaking, the clearly oppressed and disadvantaged group is the one we focus on in terms of equity. Men are not, nor have they ever been, that group.

You know that the article is about a study demonstrating that women are outachieving men academically, right? It's outright suggesting that there is some as-of-yet-identified disadvantage there.

So while you say "no, not ever", I say "are you even having the same conversation we are?"

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

#329

Post by leetcrew »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #311
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, it's typing. Not for math, at least not for my kids. I was helping my son with his high school physics homework a few days ago, and IMO his poor handwriting was a genuine impediment to his mathematical problem-solving.

Layout is more important than handwriting for maths, no?

poorly written 7's can look like 1's, and 5's like 6's. I lost a lot of points in high school math because I couldn't read what I had just written on the previous line!

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

#330

Post by zionic »

hc-taway wrote: post #314
jacobolus wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> son needs more discipline This does not seem like the right conclusion. More like "needs running around time and free play". Cf. e.g. https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/discipline-problem-solutio... https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/beyond-discipline-article/

Two of my kids (one a boy and one a girl) act absolutely nuts and "must" have something like ADHD... until you make sure they run around outside at least 4hrs a day, consistently. Then they're fine. Unfortunately this is effectively impossible to achieve for 2-3 months every year, with school in session and short Winter days. They're in lower elementary school but I think their total recess time per day is only about…

Is it time to trial desk treadmills for grade schoolers? :D
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