How Negative Stereotypes About Boys Affect Their Academics And Health

Article here. Excerpt:

'At stake in this debate is so much more than the toys boys play with. The stereotypes and pressures that boys face threaten their physical and mental health, their ability to navigate their inner lives and interpersonal relationships, and even their academic success.

Consider how boys are doing in school. The average boy lags behind the average girl in reading. Boys are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to enroll in college. Journalists and activists have been calling attention to this “boy crisis” in education for two decades, attributing it to teaching styles ill-suited to boys and more generally to the assumption, among feminists and educators, that the students most in need of attention and help are girls.

But research suggests that boys are limited in part by the commonly held belief that girls are better than boys at reading. In classrooms, where many children firmly believe that stereotype, boys have less confidence in their own reading skills, less motivation to read, and weaker reading skills, according to a longitudinal study that tracked more than fifteen hundred students as they moved from the fifth to sixth grades. A stereotype about boys in this case became a prophecy.'