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UNITED STATES, December 28, 2003: According to a USA Today research done in 1,000 high schools, spanning more than 25 states in the US, and from a survey among 40,000 typical students (that is, neither stars nor low performers), it has been found that boys have “a deep-seated malaise about learning.” According to the research, for five out of six girls, it is important to continue education beyond high school, but only two out of three boys have a similar interest. The newspaper’s editorial states: While 70 percent of girls thought it was useful to do well in school to achieve life goals, only about one in two boys felt the same. Also, 31 percent of boys scored low on federal reading tests, compared with 20 percent of girls. In colleges, at the end of the 1990’s, for every 100 boys who got their bachelor’s degrees, there were 133 women and this could go up to 142 by 2010, according to the US Department of Education. It used to be believed that boys catch up with girls “in math and science courses starting in 10th or 11th grades.” The new finding is that they are simply “falling behind.” An op-ed piece in USA Today by Sally Shaywitz suggests that teachers may be holding boys to the behavioral standards of girls. By such a yardstick, boys who are normal as boys may be seen as being more inattentive, more active and exhibiting more behavioral and academic problems.

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