Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Boys overrepresented at GT magnet

I should perhaps mention that the school requires only IQ test results, current GIEP, and report cards to apply. No achievement test scores. No other application of any kind. It's an interesting system. Anyway, they don't have much data about the kids' math ability on the ground, nor is there a chance to write some long impassioned plea about square peg and round hole, etc.

The ratio may be more skewed than 60/40. I didn't actually count. It was simply easily visible that there were more boys than girls, though it wasn't 80/20 or anything like that.


It's not that I think boys are damaging. However, I think it can be socially hard to be the minority gender in the early school years when kids self-segregate. We have already seen this in DD's life, on multiple occasions.

Also (I realize I am hijacking my own thread), on the question of boys having greater variability and more representation in the 95th-99th%, there is this study:

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/22/8801.long

"Do gender differences in mathematics performance exist in the general population? Do gender differences exist among the mathematically talented? Do females exist who possess profound mathematical talent? In regard to the first question, contemporary data indicate that girls in the U.S. have reached parity with boys in mathematics performance, a pattern that is found in some other nations as well. Focusing on the second question, studies find more males than females scoring above the 95th or 99th percentile, but this gender gap has significantly narrowed over time in the U.S. and is not found among some ethnic groups and in some nations. Furthermore, data from several studies indicate that greater male variability with respect to mathematics is not ubiquitous. Rather, its presence correlates with several measures of gender inequality. Thus, it is largely an artifact of changeable sociocultural factors, not immutable, innate biological differences between the sexes. Responding to the third question, we document the existence of females who possess profound mathematical talent. Finally, we review mounting evidence that both the magnitude of mean math gender differences and the frequency of identification of gifted and profoundly gifted females significantly correlate with sociocultural factors, including measures of gender equality across nations. "

I personally am very suspicious of any supposedly "biological" difference between the sexes that has narrowed immensely in the extraordinarily brief period of less than 50 years. What on earth makes us think that okay, *NOW,* just at this very moment, we have suddenly reached the point of No More Bias, This is How It REALLY Is? Hubris.

ETA that I am now reading the entire article cited above and it's really very interesting. It punctures the Boys Innately Have Greater Variability and Greater Tendency Toward Extreme Math Talent theory pretty decisively. I have electronic access to the full article through my job; unfortunately, I am sure the full text isn't free.

Beautifully put. I've been thinking around this topic but never quite saw it as clearly as you've stated here.

I'm only chiming in here to say that I understand ultramarina's concern. I am very wary of educational situations where boys outnumber girls. I have read too much about how boys talk "out of turn", teachers call on boys more or answer their "shouted out" answers, and give their answers more examination then they do with the answers that girls give. It takes a lot of self-awareness for teachers not to fall into this trap.

herenow, I saw this quite recently at an informal event (a tour of an educational attraction) where my DD was the only girl among some assertive boys. The boys were all up in the front shouting out answers and very excited. DD, in the back, raised her hand every time but was called on almost never, because the (male--and wonderful in all other ways) guide always simply responded to the boys who shouted out. When I mentioned this to my husband and my friend, who has a boy, my husband had noticed but my friend had not.

This was rather more poignant to me because I know that she IS a shouter-outer by nature and has been extensively and successfully trained this year NOT to do it.

Also, thank you for the compliment.

We've been in situations like the one you describe with the guide; my girls are just too polite and they get lost in the shuffle.

I would think that the teachers they have at a gifted magnet school would be excellent, both in terms of keeping all the children interested and on topic, and also being able to manage a classroom's worth of behavior. The 60/40 split isn't that big a difference -- and it always comes down to particular personalities in the classroom.

The private gifted school in our city looked really good online, until I saw the photos of the high school class trip. I think it was about 15 boys and 1 girl....

My DDs current class is almost exactly 2/3 boys at this point. It's a private school that due to it's demographic attracts more boys than girls - people willing to pay the fees mostly believe boys should go co-ed and girls should go single sex. They send their sons to our school and their daughters to similar girls-only private schools near by.

Up until now we have been determined to send our girls co-ed because they have no brothers, but most of their close friends are boys. However, it seems like the school is really struggling to maintain their gender balance at the moment, which was already worrying me. Reading this thread has just brought up all my memories of being the "weird smart girl" in primary school and how badly that went down in a co-ed school. By the end of primary school I refused to go to school at all unless my parents found me an all girls school, of course retrospectively I was still weird and isolated, so I don't know if it helped.

My DD doesn't complain about the boys at school being dominant, so I haven't given it too much thought. Though I was pretty shocked at how separate the genders were at her birthday party last month and how poorly the boys behaved. It was certainly very different to how things have been in the past, leaving me wondering whether it's age related or whether her class is now too heavily biased towards boys.

How do you weigh an issue like this against a school otherwise being the ideal fit for your child. I honestly believe that the school has the best services and differentiation available in my city, perhaps there are one or two co-ed schools that may be equal but I don't think there are any better and as far as I am aware any of the others that are of a similar quality have the exact same issue maintaining balance. And all my reasons for wanting the co-ed remain, all girls might fix some issues but it introduces issues of it's own too.

Which is my long winded way of saying I understand your anxiety but have I no idea what to suggest.

Granted these studies are old, but this is from "How Schools Shortchange Girls".

"Teachers call on and interact with boys more than girls (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). This is probably not intentional. During the numerous teacher-student interactions that occur over the course of the school day, boys use creative and effective techniques to catch the teacher�s attention. Boys quickly raise their hands to respond or contribute to discussions, wave their hand around and up and down, change the arm they have raised when it gets tired, jump out of their seat and make noise or plead with the teacher to call on them. Girls, however, raise their hand but will soon put it down if they are not acknowledged. As a result, teachers call on boys and interact with them most of the time, while girls� passive, compliant behavior often means they are ignored. [...]

In addition to allowing boys more time to respond, teachers often extend boy�s answers by asking a follow-up question or by asking them to support their previous response. Girls are more likely to receive an �accepted� response from teachers such as �Okay� or �Uh-huh.� [...]Carmen�s answer prompted only the comment �Okay.� These behaviors send a very negative message about the importance of girls� contributions to class discussions. [...]

Teachers tolerate more calling out from boys than from girls. Boys call out answers (when the teacher does not call on them) eight times more often than girls do (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). Teachers often respond to boys� calling out, thus reinforcing the behavior. When girls call out, however, teachers are more likely to remind them that they are not following the class rules. [...]

In one area females usually receive more attention than boys�physical appearance. Girls receive compliments more often than boys on their clothing, hairstyle and overall appearance (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). This emphasis on appearance also influences how their school work is evaluated (Dweck, Davidson, Nelson & Enna, 1978). Girls receive praise for neatness while boys receive recognition for academic achievements."

So while I acknowledged that it does all come down to personalities in the classroom, I think the studies link gender with behavior.

I'm really curious whether recent studies show this to hold true. I feel like girls are socialized a little differently these days...

Yes, I think there is research showing issues both for boys AND girls in terms of how they get treated in the classroom. It's a complex question, for sure.


Of course not--I completely agree. FTR, I also have a boy as well as a girl. My girl has some stereotypically "male" behaviors and my boy has some "female" ones, so my kids are not particularly "gender-typical" by cultural standards. However, it's been my observation that many kids do fit the classroom behavior stereotypes. But I am probably more concerned about social fit and finding friends than classroom dynamics. Maybe the magnet will be less gender-segregated, but at her present school, the boys and girls virtually never play together at recess.

ETA that I do also have concerns about DD being steered away from/turned off on math. The steering has already happened at her present school. Her verbal talents are very obvious, but IMO she has some awesome math potential. I worry that math may be more male-identified at a school that is already boy-heavy.

Are the boys shouting out answers and being loud because they are excited by the subject, rather than trying to be deliberately disruptive? If it's the former, ordering them to be quieter and more polite could also dampen their enthusiasm. There are pros and cons to various kinds of classroom management.