College began as a nearly all-male world, and that long trickled down through the education system. Then, 50 years ago, the U.S. government prohibited discrimination in education on the basis of sex. Now, women earn more than 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees.
It’s evidence that “in the space of just a few decades, girls and women have not just caught up with boys and men in the classroom — they have blown right past them.”
So writes author Richard V. Reeves in his 2022 book “Of Boys and Men.” While some observers have seen this shift as a cause for celebration about what girls and women have achieved, Reeves uses it to launch a more somber exploration about what, exactly, is going on with boys and men these days.
As his subtitle puts it, “the modern male is struggling.”
Reeves, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brooking Institution, calls for readers to pay attention to “the specific challenges being faced by boys and men” in education, work and family life. Those barriers, he argues, include:
- Boys’ brains develop more slowly on average than girls’ brains do;
- Many young men exhibit lower levels of engagement and motivation than young women do;
- Gendered racism especially holds back Black boys and men.
EdSurge recently spoke with Reeves about how education might change to better support boys and men. His proposals include delaying boys from starting kindergarten, getting serious about recruiting more men into teaching and investing more in vocational education.
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