The Center for the Interdisciplinary Study
of Language and Literacy and the
Collaborative on Early Adolescence
The Achievement Gap
in Reading:
Exploring The Gender
Literacy Connection
for Boys
Dr. William G. Brozo
George Mason University
[email protected]
Northern Illinois University, April 7, 2011
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What Are Your Opinions About
Boys and Reading?
1.
Boys read less well than girls because in our society literacy and
masculinity are incompatible.
2.
Even if many boys are poor readers, males in our society are
privileged and do not need special attention.
3.
Our feminized school environment has contributed to boys’ lack of
interest and achievement in reading.
4.
The books and other reading material boys are asked to read in
school contribute to their lack of interest in reading.
5.
The time boys spend with new media is reducing time for traditional
print reading, which is contributing to their declining achievement
scores
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The “Big” Issues
Academic Achievement
Boys underperform relative to girls on most measures of
verbal ability (e.g. state reading and writing high-stakes
tests; NAEP; PISA; PIRLS; etc.)
Boys are overrepresented in remedial reading, learning
disabilities classes
Boys receive most of the Ds and Fs in elementary school
Boys are far more likely to be retained at grade level than
girls
Fewer boys than girls attend/graduate from college
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The “Big” Issues
New Literacies
 Definitions of literacy are expanding to
include digital literacies, youth media, and
virtually any act of meaning making as
―reading.‖
 Evidence can be found for male youth
participating actively in the ―mediasphere‖
 Boys’ expertise with digital and media
literacy may not be privileged and/or
valued in most academic contexts
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The “Big” Issues
Social Justice
African-American and Hispanic-American
boys have the lowest reading achievement
Male youth of color are over-represented
among the ranks of high school dropouts
Boys of color disproportionately represent
incarcerated youth who also have very low
literacy skills
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The “Big” Issues
Sociopathy (in the U.S.)
Males commit most suicides
Males perpetrate most homicides
Males commit most acts of family violence
Males comprise most of the homeless
Males comprise most drug addicts
Males comprise most AIDS carriers
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The “Big” Issues
Insidious Sexism
Males continue to dominate political,
corporate, and institutional life in America
(and elsewhere in the world)
As girls make significant strides academically
and professionally, advocates of boys’
academic needs want to ensure male
primacy, thus invoke ―crisis‖ to rally popular
support
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The “Big” Issues
Hegemonic Masculinty
―Boy-friendly‖ curricular schemes do little
more than perpetuate gender myths and
stereotypes
Binary notions of gender as a basis for
literacy curricular decisions exclude all the
different ways of ―being male‖ or ―being
female‖
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History
•
•
For as long as there have been
schools, there have been boys who
would rather be elsewhere:
And then the whining schoolboy with
his satchel and shiny morning face
creeping like a snail unwillingly to
school. (Jacques in Shakespeare’s
As You Like It)
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History
•
•
•
The pattern of gender differences in reading
favoring girls began to be noticed as soon as
such comparisons could be made (Herman, 1973;
Holbrook, 1988; Samuel, 1943)
Arthur Gates’ landmark study of 13,000
elementary school children in 1961 popularized
the idea of female reading superiority
Curiously, at the same time in Germany in the
1960s, when most elementary teachers were
male, boys demonstrated superior reading
achievement over girls (Preston, 1962)
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History





With the rise of modern feminism in the U.S.,
attention shifted to redressing years of
neglect of academic/schooling needs of girls
(e.g., Title 9; anti-discrimination acts that
include girls/women)
Gender and Education journal founded in
1988
American Association of University Women
Educational Foundation (1992). How School
Shortchange Girls. Washington, DC: Author
Reviving Ophelia (Pipher, 1995)
Failing at Fairness (Sadker & Sadker, 1995)
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Current Trends
•
•
•
•
•
Gender differences in reading have become
engrained in popular consciousness
News media encourage ―crisis‖ mentality
Popular press books continue to be written (e.g.,
Richard Whitmire’s Why Boys Fail; Peg Tyre’s The
Trouble with Boys)
Major reports reinforce achievement differences
(e.g., Center on Education Policy, 2010)
Shift from establishing the gender differences in
achievement to explaining them and developing
interventions for boys
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Current Trends

Challenges to what are seen as
essentialist responses to issues of boys’
reading achievement patterns

Feminists and gay scholars argue for a
nuanced and inclusive literacy curriculum
with a critical agenda that interrogates
how gender is constructed through text
and other media
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What does the literature say about
the achievement gap?



A reading achievement gap in favor of adolescent
girls over adolescent boys is significant in all 139
studies in which such comparisons were made
(Lietz, 2006).
The gap was more pronounced for NAEP in the
United States, and for the more recent
assessment programs in Australia and the
Program for International Student Assessment
conducted by the OECD
Variables such as age or whether or not English
was the language of test administration did not
emerge as factors that had an impact on gender
differences
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?

Female students consistently read more than
male students from primary education to higher
education (Blackwood, Flowers, Rogers, & Staik;
1991; Hall & Coles, 1997; Gambell & Hunter,
2000; Greaney & Hegarty, 1987; Millard, 1997;
Moffitt & Wartella, 1992; Simpson, 1996;
Watkins & Edwards, 1992; Whitehead, Capey, &
Maddren, 1974)

Gender plays an important role in students’
reading choices.
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?

There is a general consensus in the
literature that female students devote
more time to narrative fiction than male
students (Blackwood et al., 1991; Coles &
Hall, 2002; Davies & Brember, 1993;
Gambell & Hunter, 2000; Greaney, 1980;
Hughes-Hassell & Rodge, 2007; Moffitt &
Wartella, 1992; Simpson, 1996;
Whitehead et al., 1974).
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?
Large-scale studies in the United Kingdom of
children’s reading interests (Coles & Hall, 2002;
Hall & Coles, 1997; Whitehead et al., 1974)
found:
 Boys read less than girls; even when ability
and attainment were held constant, girls of a
given ability group tended to do more
voluntary reading than boys in the same
group.
 Girls read remarkably few non-narrative texts,
whereas boys read considerably more nonnarratives than girls.
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?



Girls read more books about relationships and romance,
while boys read more science fiction and fantasy, sportsrelated books, and war and spy stories.
More females than males read for enjoyment outside of
school, while males were more apt to read for
information or to learn how to do something.
Boys’ literacy choices tend to give greater emphasis to
taking information from the text rather than analyzing
motivation or characterization (Coles and Hall, 2001)
Implication:
 If school definitions of literacy were broadened to
embrace the kinds of texts that boys prefer, boys would
be more motivated to read and learn.
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?
In a study of 16,000 individuals aged 15
and over from 15 European Union Member
States in 2001, Skaliotis (2002) found:
 More
females than males reported
having read books over the
previous 12 months in all
countries.
 This pattern was valid for all levels
of educational attainment.
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?
In Australia, Simpson (1996) investigated
the reading practices of girls and boys
aged 10-12 and found:

Girls read more and read narrative fiction
almost exclusively; they read very little of
other genres, including non-fiction.

Boys as a group read less but read more nonfiction and had a broader interest in topics.
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?
Studies of reading preferences
and habits in Taiwan and Hong
Kong show a pattern similar to
Western nations:
 Females are reading more than
males in elementary and
secondary school (Lin, 2000;
Mok & Cheung, 2004)
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What does the literature say
about gendered preferences and practices?
In the United States, Hughes-Hassell
and Rodge (2007) studied the leisure
reading habits of 1,340 students in
grades 5 through 8 at an urban
middle school in a large northeastern
city and reported:
 54% of male students ranked
comics as the favorite leisure
reading choice
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Explanations

Test Bias

Attitudes and Behaviors

Choice of Reading Material

Reading as a Gendered Activity
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Test Bias

Some research suggests that reading assessments are biased
against boys, either in the way the tests are constructed or in the
manner in which they are graded

Girls are more likely to be accustomed to using reading strategies
such as scanning and re-reading text—the same reading
strategies that are needed in large-scale assessments

In Lietz’s (2006) meta-analysis investigating gender differences in
reading achievement across 139 studies showed that gender
differences in half of the studies could be explained by differences
in test design

On PISA, boys demonstrate superior performance on non-linear
reading tasks
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Attitudes and Behaviors
As a result of their attitudes and
behaviors, girls tend to have a greater
number of experiences with reading
activities, which may explain their better
performance in reading assessments such
as NAEP and PISA.
 By contrast, boys’ attitudes and behaviors
may be acting as barriers in the
development of the reading skills needed
for high performance on reading
assessments (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002)

Brozo2011
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Choice of Reading Material

Differences in genre preferences are frequently
cited as an explanation for differences in reading
performance between boys and girls.

Boys’ preferred genres may not find their way
into classrooms or library shelves because
teachers are predominantly female and teachers’
own reading preferences are reflected in the
books they select for their students (Bauerlein &
Stotsky, 2005; Worthy, Moorman, & Turner,
1999)
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Reading as a Gendered Activity

Boys frequently view reading as a
feminine activity and this can reduce their
motivation to read (Dutro, 2002;
Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002)

Boys who view reading as a feminine
activity tend to have formed this
perception at a very early age
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My Participation in a Boys Book Club
The study grew out of my participation
as an electronic member of an all-boys
book club
 Ann, the reading teacher, found she
had eight seventh-grade boys in one of
her 45 minute remedial classes.
 In her search for ideas and suggestions
that would help her improve the boys’
reading skills and attitudes, she came
upon my work with boys and literacy

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The Boys Book Club

Ann wrote me in early September of
2003 asking for suggestions and ideas;
I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee

In planning with Ann it was decided
that a book club context for the class
could increase the boys’ participation in
their own literacy development

She and the boys invited me to join the
club, which was officially formed in
October 2003
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The Boys Book Club
Book Club Members included Nara,
Colin, Ricardo, Jaimi, Michael, Renard,
Tony and Esteban
 All were youth of color in a school with
an ethnic mix to the overall school
population: 46% Hispanic American;
22% African American; 22% Euro
American; and 9% Asian American.

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“Renard”
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“Tony”
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“Estaban”
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Context and Method

My participation spanned seven months
from October to May, 2003-04

The eight students along with their
teacher read various culturally relevant
texts and engaged in culturally
informed practices
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Examples of Culturally Relevant Texts
Scorpions (Walter Dean Myers)
 Trino’s Choice (Diane Gonzalez Bertrand)
 The Watson’s Go to Birmingham—1963
(Christopher Paul Curtis)

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Examples of
Culturally Informed Practices

Member-Centered
– Reading material was selected based on
boys’ interests and approval
--Boys’ helped generate and were given choice of
response options to material read
Sample Activities in Response to Books:

Exploration of violence by male youth within book club
members’ neighborhoods and community

Exploration of gangs in club members’ neighborhoods
and community

Celebration of members’ family histories
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Major Findings

Boys were more engaged in book club than in
regular reading class

Boys attitudes toward reading improved

Boys developed healthier understanding of
masculinity

Six of the eight boys passed the reading
portion of the state test that spring
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Deconstructing Hegemonic
Masculinity

―Real Men‖ Unit in the barrio in South
Texas

Archetypal texts that offer boys the
surprising and multifarious faces of
masculinity

Bean & Harper’s ―Reading Men Differently‖
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Research Directions

How can alternative/youth media/literacies motivate boys
to read academic texts? (e.g., bridge texts)

How might these practices be used to engage boys in
deconstructing hegemonic masculinity?

What levels of engagement, critical thinking and
consciousness are possible when boys are given choice in
their response options/formats to school texts?

How do we honor boys’ discourses of desire while
encouraging and nurturing more sophisticated text choices
and more thoughtful reading?
Brozo08
From Bright Beginnings for Boys
―Failing to meet the literacy needs of all young
boys isn’t so much a crisis as it is an
imperative educational challenge…
Furthermore, concerns about boys’ reading
attitudes and achievement should be framed
around more responsive literacy instruction
and interactions for all children. Boys need to
be engaged and capable readers not solely to
be as good as or better than girls, but to
increase their educational, occupational, and
civic opportunities and, above all, to become
thoughtful and resourceful men.‖
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References
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
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

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
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Remember…
Boys are our hope for the future,
But you are their hope today.
Thank you!
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