Something is quietly happening to boys in western education… they are failing. Failing across the board, at all levels, and for decades. And yet, despite the gap getting bigger and bigger, our knowledge and interest in understanding what is going on remains as apathetic as it always has; ignored by advocates, educationalists, policy makers and the media alike. Nobody is doing anything. And so, we are left with far more questions than answers. To quote Richard Reeves, arguably the world’s leading authority on men and boys: ‘World-class scholars have pored over the low rates of male college enrolment and completion, piling up data and running regressions. I have read these studies and spoken to many of the scholars. The short summary of their conclusions is: We don’t know.’” “We don’t know.” You have no idea how often I read that, or have to say it myself, and it is simply not good enough any more. However – One of the ideas that attempts to explain why boys are behind, is the controversial idea of teacher grading bias. It’s a phenomenon that reveals itself when you take boys and girls of equal intelligence, and look at how the grades change when it comes to teacher assessments. Yup. Boys and girls do equally well in tests, as an objective measure of raw intelligence, but when it comes to the classrooms, something changes. So what happened when that objective measure of exams (that mercifully keeps boys’ grades somewhat tethered to girls’), was taken away during COVID 19 lockdowns? Can such a once in a generation event be used to examine the phenomena of teacher bias? So, do we mark boys down, of the same cognitive ability? And is our school system rigged against them? What do you think? ~ Empathy Gap, William Collins A Level Data Hepi article Images by Andrej Lisakov, and Giulia Squillace and Karolina Grabowska #boys #parentsofinstagram #boymom #boydad

2025-06-27