Date: Sun, 04 Feb 1996 11:35:20 +1000
From: g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au
Subject: Boys and girls come out to play



As a life long educationist I have been extremely interested in a report 
in The Green Left Weekly (DSP i.e. American SWP) about the recent 
performances of girls in schoold examinations in NSW Australia.

Briefly the girls whipped the boys.

"Of the students completing the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in NSW in 
1995, female students returned an average score of 54.04 out of 100 
comapred to 46.15 for male students; young women also made up 58% of the 
top 5000 students; and of the 13 to receive perfect scores of 100, nine 
were women." (T.Corcoran, GLW, Jan 24:12)


What is especially interesting about this is the response of the media.  
No one has advanced the explanation that girls are born smarter than 
boys.  No way. Here by sharp contrast with the I.Q. debate the emphasis 
is all on environmental factors.  The favourite explanantion appears to 
be that feminists have bullied educators into ignoring boys!

Few people have advanced an hypothesis which is linked to the way boys 
are constructed.  What we are seeing with these results is surely the 
result of the encouragement of anti-intellectualism among boys.


Regards

Gary


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