And since the 80s the western education system has been feminized to better accommodate the needs of females at the expense of the needs of males. The result is that males are more frequently seen as disruptive, hyperactive, and disinterested. The gender gap begins in elementary school and escalates as the level of education increases. It's not just black males either; it's all males in most westernized countries, not just the USA:
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For years, there has been a movement in American K-12 education that is built upon the notion that schools must try to make boys more like girls. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of the excellent book The War Against Boys calls it the “feminization” of education. The core idea is that most of the world’s problems stem from predominantly male traits such as aggression and competition and the solution is to socialize boys to be more cooperative and nurturing, like girls.
Some of the implications of that theory are that reading material that might appeal to boys (e.g., stories involving adventure or conflict) must be replaced with material that conveys “better” messages. Competition is also reduced or eliminated, as by having students do group projects rather than working individually. Even the games kids play during recess have to be controlled to make sure that they don’t reinforce all those bad latent tendencies in boys.
The result of all this is to make school a lot less interesting for boys. Of course, many still do well, but the tendency is to cause marginal students to lose interest. Far more boys than girls get bored with school and drop out. The feminization of education has much to do with that.
So the dominance of women on campus may be alerting us to a serious problem – the fact that early education is turning many boys off from making the most of the chance to develop their minds. -George Leef, Executive Director of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy |