Research Reveals Stereotype Threat for Boys

We have long known that girls raised to believe that boys are better than girls at math and science will tend not to do as well as the boys in those subjects. Now it seems that boys are also subject to the same "priming" by stereotypes and it impacts their success. Likewise, assuring boys and young men that boys and girls are academically equal generates better outcomes for boys, who have fallen way behind girls in most academic fields.

The Situationist blog (managed by The Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School) shared the press release from Eureka Alert on this research that was published in the journal, Child Development. At the bottom there is a whole collection of other posts from The Situationist related to this topic.

Stereotype Threat for Boys

Posted by The Situationist Staff on February 16, 2013

From Eureka Alert:

Negative stereotypes about boys may hinder their achievement, while assuring them that girls and boys are equally academic may help them achieve. From a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe adults think so, too. Even at these very young ages, boys’ performance on an academic task is affected by messages that suggest that girls will do better than they will.

Those are the conclusions of new research published in the journal Child Development and conducted at the University of Kent. The research sought to determine the causes of boys’ underachievement at school.

“People’s performance suffers when they think others may see them through the lens of negative expectations for specific racial, class, and other social stereotypes—such as those related to gender—and so expect them to do poorly,” explains Bonny L. Hartley, a PhD student at the University of Kent, who led the study. “This effect, known as stereotype threat, grants stereotypes a self-fulfilling power.”

In three studies of primarily White schoolchildren in Britain, Hartley and her colleague investigated the role of gender stereotypes. They found that from a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe that adults think so, too.

The first study looked at children’s stereotypes about boys’ and girls’ conduct, ability, and motivation. Researchers gave 238 children ages 4 to 10 a series of scenarios that showed a child with either good behavior or performance (such as “This child really wants to learn and do well at school”) or poor behavior or performance (such as “This child doesn’t do very well at school”), then asked the children to indicate to whom the story referred by pointing to a picture, in silhouette, of a boy or a girl. From an early age—girls from 4 and boys from 7—children matched girls to positive stories and boys to negative ones. This suggests that the children thought girls behaved better, performed better, and understood their work more than boys, despite the fact that boys are members of a nonstigmatized, high-status gender group that is substantially advantaged in society. Follow-up questions showed that children thought adults shared these stereotypes.

Researchers then did two experiments to determine whether stereotype threat hindered boys’ academic performance. In one, involving 162 children ages 7 and 8, telling children that boys did worse than girls at school caused boys’ performance in a test of reading, writing, and math to decline (compared to a control group that got no such information). In the other experiment, involving 184 children ages 6 to 9, telling children that boys and girls were expected to do equally well caused boys’ performance on a scholastic aptitude test to improve (compared to a control group). Girls’ performance wasn’t affected.

“In many countries, boys lag behind girls at school,” according to Hartley. “These studies suggest that negative academic stereotypes about boys are acquired in children’s earliest years of primary education and have self-fulfilling consequences. They also suggest that it is possible to improve boys’ performance, and so close the gender gap, by conveying egalitarian messages and refraining from such practices as dividing classes by gender.”

Related Situationist posts: 

• Sian Beilock and Allen McConnell on Stereotype Threat
• The Gendered Situation of Math, Humanities, and Romance
• Not Just Whistling Vivaldi
• Women’s Situational Bind,”
• The Nerdy, Gendered Situation of Computer Science
• Social Psychologists Discuss Stereotype Threat
• The Gendered Situation of Chess
• The Situation of Gender-Science Stereotypes
• The Situation of Gender and Science
• Stereotype Threat and Performance
• The Gendered Situation of Science & Math
• Gender-Imbalanced Situation of Math, Science, and Engineering
• Sex Differences in Math and Science
• You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes
• Women’s Situation in Economics
• Your Group is Bad at Math
• Belonging

American Men's Studies Association - 2006 Study Already Cast Doubt on A “Boy Crisis”

I posted a series of articles over the last week or two from the Canadian paper, Globe and Mail on the boy crisis - Failing Boys. The consensus of the studies was that boys are failing academically, being over-medicated, and are being left behind in nearly every way by girls. These articles were echoes of stories we have seen in the US over the past decade or two.

But the American Men's Studies Association is arguing that a 2006 study shows just the opposite - boys are doing better than ever. The links are available below. I'll include the summary from the study below.

2006 Study Already Cast Doubt on A “Boy Crisis”

November 1, 2010 by Editor

For the record, a study released in June 2006 looking at long-term trends in test scores and academic success argues that widespread reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated and that young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever.

Using data compiled from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federally funded accounting of student achievement since 1971, the Washington-based think tank Education Sector found that, over the past three decades, boys’ test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor’s degrees.

Read the Washington Post story.

Download the full report from Education Sector here.

Here is some of the study summary from the Education Sector site:

The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better.

In fact, with a few exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have before. But girls have just improved their performance on some meas­­­ures even faster. As a result, girls have narrowed or even closed some academic gaps that previously favored boys, while other long-standing gaps that favored girls have widened, leading to the belief that boys are falling behind.

There's no doubt that some groups of boys—particularly Hispanic and black boys and boys from low-income homes—are in real trouble. But the predominant issues for them are race and class, not gender. Closing racial and economic gaps would help poor and minority boys more than closing gender gaps, and focusing on gender gaps may distract attention from the bigger problems facing these youngsters.

The hysteria about boys is partly a matter of perspective. While most of society has finally embraced the idea of equality for women, the idea that women might actually surpass men in some areas (even as they remain behind in others) seems hard for many people to swallow. Thus, boys are routinely characterized as "falling behind" even as they improve in absolute terms.

In addition, a dizzying array of so-called experts have seized on the boy crisis as a way to draw attention to their pet educational, cultural, or ideological issues. Some say that contemporary classrooms are too structured, suppressing boys' energetic natures and tendency to physical expression; others contend that boys need more structure and discipline in school. Some blame "misguided feminism" for boys' difficulties, while others argue that "myths" of masculinity have a crippling impact on boys.³ Many of these theories have superficially plausible rationales that make them appealing to some parents, educators, and policymakers. But the evidence suggests that many of these ideas come up short.

Unfortunately, the current boy crisis hype and the debate around it are based more on hopes and fears than on evidence. This debate benefits neither boys nor girls, while distracting attention from more serious educational problems—such as large racial and economic achievement gaps—and practical ways to help both boys and girls succeed in school.

Download the full report (PDF).

Tags: American Men's Studies Association, 2006 Study, Boy Crisis, National Assessment of Educational Progress, Washington Post, Education Sector, research, boys, education, schools, achievement