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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 5, 2006 Jewett Elementary School fifth-graders Blair Martin, left, and Morgan Walters raise their hands, ready with answers on Friday in response to a question about whether boys and girls like science equally. The class said the subject is enjoyed equally. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven The gender gap In Jackson County and the nation, boys appear to lag behind girls in education By PARIS ACHEN Mail Tribune Fifth-grader Geoffrey Buckalew speaks of the girls in his class with a hint of envy. "Girls have more focus in all of the classes," he said. "They can concentrate more on their work. The boys think about sports." Geoffrey said he is sometimes distracted by the urge to play. He notices the same tendency in many of the other boys in his class at Jewett Elementary School in Central Point. Geoffrey’s classmate, Michael Crippen, empathizes. "The girls have study buddies," Michael said. "For some reason, boys don’t want to study together." Advertisement Nationwide, boys appear to be lagging behind girls at all levels of education, according to statistics from standardized tests, dropout rates and college enrollment. Jackson County follows suit with girls generally scoring better on state assessments and attending college in greater numbers than boys. About 43 percent of college students were men in 2002 compared to 59 percent in 1969, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education. The disparity is greater at colleges in Jackson County, where women make up 58 percent of the student body at Southern Oregon University and 60 percent at Rogue Community College. The high school dropout rate is equal among men and women in the county, contrary to the national trend in which men are more likely to drop out. "These are not new trends," said Patrick Burk, chief policy officer at the Oregon Department of Education. "The difficult part is trying to understand why. "Some of the answers lie within the area of learning styles and the match between those styles and the form of instruction provided in schools." Research suggests girls develop language skills, vocabulary and auditory comprehension earlier than boys, he said. "If the dominant form of instruction is verbal and language-based then this favors girls’ learning styles over boys," he said. "Likewise, boys’ physical development, body weight, muscle development and movement coupled with a desire to understand how things work tend to be dominant characteristics in boys. So, an instructional program that contains movement, activity and exploration tends to favor a boys’ learning style." Cody Davidson, a student at Rogue Community College, blamed his poor performance in public school on his propensity for misbehavior. "Considering the pack of boys I hung around with in the fourth and fifth grades, we were more disruptive in classes than the girls," Davidson said. "That snowballed into us not performing as well." Schools need to strike a balance in instruction styles to give the sexes parity in education, Burk said. The state is seeking to boost student achievement among both genders by requiring an individual learning plan for each student who graduates in 2007. The move toward small learning communities at high schools also is meant to improve academic performance and curb the dropout rate, Burk said. Julie Reed Kochanek, assistant professor of sociology at Southern Oregon University, said boys’ and girl’s socialization accounts for the gap between their academic achievement, which she regards as insignificant. "Girls are taught to follow orders and listen quietly, which helps them do better in schools." Kochanek said. "But the way the gender bias benefits boys is they get more attention when they are acting up." Girls haven’t kept pace with boys in math and science in high school, though they have gained ground, Kochanek said. State assessment results show boys in Jackson County score better than girls in science, and in some school districts, in math as well. But across the board, girls scored significantly higher than boys in reading and writing. At South Medford High School, girls make up the majority in advanced placement courses. However, higher numbers of males enroll in calculus, chemistry and statistics. That carries forward into college, Kochanek said. Interest and academic achievement "have to do with how men and women see themselves," she said. "The responsibility of raising children is still put heavily on women instead of being shared. Women tend to look for careers that allow them to balance a career and a family." Society has labeled reading and writing as feminine activities, while math and science are often considered masculine, she said. The pressure for boys to go into math, science and engineering explains their adeptness at those subjects and the continued inequality in pay between men and women, she said. Jobs in math, science and engineering fields pay more than the arts, she said. Men who choose not to go on to college have more options for high-paying jobs than women who don’t go to college, she said. The construction and trade industries, still a magnet for men, offer relatively high wages for those without a college degree, she said. "It’s a societal thing that needs to change what it means to be a man," she said. "When that changes we will see the numbers turn around." Reach reporter Paris Achen at 776-4459 or e-mail The gender gap ">[email protected] . 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