4 Troubled Teens Blog

A gender expert who serves as a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks has released a study that she says documents the degree to which boys' problems are going unrecognized and untreated.

An article by Tom Spears of the Ottawa Citizen provided the following details about the controversial findings of Prof. Judith Kleinfeld:

Girls do have their troubles, she agrees: They suffer more depression, eating disorders and thoughts of suicide.

"The difficulties of boys, however, which span far more areas, have been generally ignored. It is boys who are performing at strikingly lower levels in literacy," she writes in the journal Gender Issues. It is boys who are more likely to quit school early, to be in special education, to have behaviour problems and be suspended or expelled.

Boys are far more likely to skip their homework, arrive at school without books or pencils and cause a disturbance that gets them kicked out of class. Boys are more likely to commit suicide or to be arrested.

"Policy attention has focused on the supposed underachievement of females in mathematics and science but these gender gaps are small," Prof. Kleinfeld wrote in Gender Issues. "In contrast, substantial gender gaps are occurring in reading and writing, which place males at a serious disadvantage in the employment market and in college."

Labels: boys, girls, gender gap

Posted By: Aspen/CRC