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Missing: Males on College Campuses
Some researchers call them the www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/02/05/gender_ed/index.html
'Lost Boys'. They are the students you don't see on
college campuses. The National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES) nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/proj2012/table_13.asp
tracks the enrollment in all degree-granting
institutions by sex. From 1992 to 2000, the ratio
of enrolled males to females fell from 82 to 78
boys for every 100 girls. The NCES projects that in
2007 the ratio will be 75 males for every 100
females; in 2012, 74 per 100.
In short, your son is statistically more likely
than your daughter to work blue collar jobs.
Thomas Mortenson, senior scholar at the Pell
Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher
Education, argues that leaving a generation of boys
behind hurts women as well. For one thing,
In a Business Week www.businessweek.com/@@e0s@vYUQ3VY66hoA/magazine/content/03_21/b3834010_mz001.htm
cover story, Mortenson observed, "My belief is that
until women decide that the education of boys is a
serious issue, nothing is going to happen." He
believes some women feel threatened by even
admitting the problem, however, because "it will
take away from the progress of women…What
everyone needs to realize is that if boys continue
to slide, women will lose too."
That realization still seems distant.
Educational experts continue to downplay the NCES
and other nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/equity/Section8.asp
data that indicate schools are hurting boys.
Jacqueline King -- author of the influential
study 64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:VtXmyeRvt-EJ:www.acenet.edu/bookstore/pdf/2000_gender_equity.pdf+%22%22Gender+Equity+in+Higher+Education:+Are+Male+Students+at+a+Disadvantage%3F%22&hl=en&start=2#14
"Gender Equity in Higher Education: Are Male
Students at a Disadvantage?" -- is an example. She
found that 68 percent of college enrollees from
low-income families were female; only 31 percent
were male.
Yet King insists there is no 'boy crisis' in
education despite the fact that data from Upward
Bound and Talent Search show a comparable gender
gap. (These college-preparation programs operate in
high schools and www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget06/summary/edlite-section3.html
received $312.6 million $144.9 million respectively
in 2005.) Of the students who receive benefits from
those college-preparation programs, approximately
61 percent are girls; 39 percent are boys.
King's www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2313/context/cover/
quoted explanation of the gender gaps: "women make
up a disproportionate share of low-income students"
who go on to college. Since low-income families
presumably give birth to boys in the same ratio as
the general population -- worldwide the ratio is
between 103 to 107 boys for every 100 girls -- why
are so few boys applying for assistance? A higher
drop-out rate might be partly responsible, or boys
may have no interest in higher education.
King comments on the latter explanation, "male
low-income students have some ability in this
strong economy to make a decent living with just a
high-school diploma." In particular, she points to
the construction industry.
King may be correct. The fact that low-income
boys gravitate toward manual labor may account for
some of the educational gender disparity.
What is striking, however, is her apparent
dismissal of that disparity as important. She seems
to accept the reality that far fewer men than women
enroll in college and that poor boys enter "the
trades" while poor girls become professionals.
Imagine the gender ratio being reversed, with 78
girls for every 100 boys entering college. Imagine
a generation of poor girls being relegated to a low
social status labor while tax funding assists poor
boys. It is difficult to believe King would be
similarly unconcerned.
Nevertheless, merely by acknowledging the
situation, King shows far more balance than
prominent voices, like www.aauw.org
the American Association of University Women, which
still maintain there is a 'girl crisis.'
Fortunately, researchers like Judith Kleinfeld
of the University of Alaska see that boys are in
distress.
Kleinfeld -- author of www.uaf.edu/northern/schools/myth.html
"The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls" --
states, "In my own college classes, I see a sea
change in the behavior of young men. In the 1980s,
the young men talked in my classes about the same
as young women. I know because each semester I
measured male and female talk. Now so many young
men are disengaged that the more articulate,
ambitious women dominate the classroom ....and my
office hours."
Kleinfeld tried to trace the problem backward by
interviewing high school students on plans for
their future. She states, "The young women almost
always have a clear, realistic plan---go to
college, have a career, often directed toward an
idealistic goals about improving the environment."
This clarity of vision and was generally absent in
young men.
Among those who acknowledge the 'boy crisis',
explanations are vary and may all be true. Some
point to the 'feminization' of education over the
last decade, which occurred largely in response to
a perceived need to encourage girls. But, if boys
and girls learn differently, then the changes may
be hurting boys.
Others point to explicitly anti-male attitudes
-- that is, political correctness -- within
education. The website www.illinoisloop.org/gender.html
Illinois Loop lists "22 School Practices That May
Harm Boys." One of them: "'Modern' textbooks and
recommended literature often go to extremes to
remove male role models as lead characters and
examples."
Kleinfeld points speculatively to the impact of
increased divorce and www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7713
fatherless homes on the self-image of boys who lack
a positive male role-model.
Approximately 40 percent of American children
now live in homes without their own biological
father.
Ultimately, explanations of and solutions to the
'boy crisis' will come from exploring a combination
of factors. My solution: privatize education and
place it under the control of parents or adult
students.
The first step to any solution, however, is to
acknowledge there is a problem. We are not quite
there yet.
©2007, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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