BOYS' EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION

Boys underachieve at school. That statement is now so clearly understood that it is a cliché. Numerous studies have pointed out the underachievement of boys in schools relative to girls across the western world, especially in areas related to verbal fluenc...

This Report summarises the Report of a Project done at The King’s School, Parramatta, Australia, where the author was Researcher in Residence over the years 2000-2003. It was written partly as a background paper for the House of Representatives Standing Committee which...

INTRODUCTION

CONTEXT
Masculinity is always made in a time, a place, and in a culture or cultures. In Fathers, Sons and Lovers I’ve written about being a man in Penrith- a town that grew up near a river and which had later on a railway connecting it to Sydney. There are...

Martin Spafford, a high school teacher in London, observes that boys are under siege. “Boys feel continually attacked for who they are. We have created a sense in school that masculinity is something bad”. (Hoff Sommers 2000:57).

INTRODUCTION

Why aren’t more men in teach...

It does not take very much wit to discern that boys in Australia are facing some real challenges. These challenges reflect the challenges faced by men.

Men’s lives have changed. Once it was simple: perform, protect, provide. Look after your family, keep a job, play spor...

Boys and books? Where would we start?

Kids need to start reading early. Younger boys enjoy sitting on your lap and sharing a story. Make reading a special time you share with kids. Some family favourites are “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “The Great Big Enormous Turn...

The latest Todd Carney incident is too awful to describe in any decent online journal. Let’s just say that here we have yet another incident of Rugby League footballers behaving badly- and the results are all over the newspapers and TV and Facebook. Football is just on...

Schools are not succeeding in capturing the imagination and energy of many boys. Too many boys feel that school is a combination of a hostile authority and meaningless tasks. And governments are concerned because schools are not imparting to many boys the values govern...

1. Being a man used to be all about work. Men identified as farmers, bank clerks, plumbers, or teachers, as I found in Fathers, Sons and Lovers: Men Talk about Their Lives from the 1930s to Today. This is still true in part.

2. Men used also to be part of a web of autho...

I’ve been writing and doing research on boys’ learning for more than twenty years. It’s been such a long struggle! Why is this so?

After all these years, we are still stuck. We still can’t agree on where to start. The feminist approach wants to blame boys for many probl...