About Boys - The Southport School

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The following are a few facts we know about boys Boys under-perform compared with girls in literacy tests at both Year 3 and Year 6 in Government schools. This result is replicated throughout the school system. Boys achieve notably lower grades in English at both School Certificate Level and Higher School Certificate. (NSW). Boys perform better in numeracy tests at Years 3 and 6. Girls have outperformed boys over the past 13 years on the basis of the mean TES (Tertiary Entrance Scores). 2003 Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre Annual Report indicates that at all upper OP bands except OP Band 1 females outnumber males. The difference at Band 1 and 2 is only 0.4% of all students qualifying for an OP; however, at Band 4 the difference is 18 %. More girls than boys stay on to complete Year 12 (2002: 20,165 girls 19,149 boys in Queensland) Boys are twice as likely as girls to be labelled "learning disabled" Boys are under represented in the total available University and TAFE places. Boys can be uncommunicative. They will not talk about their problems. However the majority of students needing welfare assistance are boys. Boys have fewer alternative dispute resolution skills than girls and sometimes see physical conflict as an acceptable way to resolve problems. Studies suggest that a boy's self esteem is more fragile than that of a girl and the rate of depression among boys is alarmingly high. Boys are four to six times more likely to commit suicide. 90% of cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.) are boys. By age 15 boys are three times more likely to die from any cause - but particularly from accidents, violence and suicide.
The Construction of Masculinity “Our culture co-opts some of the most impressive qualities boys can possess - their physical energy, boldness, curiosity, and action orientation - and distorts them into a punishing dangerous definition of masculinity” (Kindlon D, & Thompson M. Raising Cain) It should be clear from the these facts that the picture of a boy's life as we enter a new century is a challenging one. A disproportionate number of boys are not achieving academically, many develop behaviour problems, have dangerously low self esteem, drop out of school, and in some instances decide that life is no longer worth living. Dr. William Pollack, Clinical Psychologist and Co-Director, Centre for Men, McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School, in his book ‘Real Boys’, suggests that many of the dilemmas faced by boys today arise from adherence in our society to what he calls the Boy Code - “the outdated and constricting assumptions, models and rules about boys that our society has used since the nineteenth century”.
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About Boys - The Southport School

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