Boys are falling behind girls in various academic and social-emotional metrics, according to an article in Education Week.
Teachers perceive boys as less focused and engaged, with 51% reporting that boys often struggle to sit still in class, according to a recent survey by Education Week. The gender disparities on a range of academic and social-emotional benchmarks start as early as preschool and continue through middle school, high school, and into college. Discipline rates (especially among Black boys), special education placement, on-time high school graduation rates, and post-secondary degree attainment are several key metrics where boys fall behind.
Susan Engel, a psychologist, notes, “Biologists say that in kindergarten, boys are, on the whole, more likely to be more physically active and have a harder time inhibiting themselves.” This behavior continues through K-12 education, with boys facing higher disciplinary rates and taking on fewer leadership roles compared to girls.
Even in math, where boys tend to outscore girls on assessments that measure aptitude, some studies show that girls’ course grades are higher than boys’—suggesting a generally lower level of motivation among boys. Similarly, in 2024, men outscored women on the SAT by 18 points in the math portion of the test, yet women were projected to continue to outpace men in undergraduate college enrollment.
Why are boys’ educational outcomes, on average, lower than girls’? Why don’t they seem to match their ability?
Education Week sought answers from educational experts, mental health professionals, social scientists, teachers and male students from all grade levels, and the results of an October EdWeek Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 611 K-12 teachers.
“When somebody is expecting you to sit still and you’re losing the ability to focus and pay attention, you’re going to start to feel dysregulated, and all of a sudden you’re rolling around on the floor, and then the teacher is redirecting you,” says kindergarten teacher Jessica Arrow.
Arrow now incorporates music, movement, guided play, and choice time into the curriculum—while still meeting state learning standards. She says her students are much more engaged in their learning, and she spends less time redirecting fidgety students, because movement is naturally incorporated into learning throughout the school day.
“Especially with boys, the pattern I see is that those who struggle to sit still in the classroom thrive during choice time, or playing outdoors,” she says.
One possible reason for the gender gap: Students who experience failures in the classroom aren’t likely to take on leadership roles in that setting.
Social conditioning might also play a role. “Guys know that if they sit back and relax, something will get done by somebody else,” says Marshall Stephenson, a high school senior who witnessed this behavior at the co-ed school he attended through 8th grade.
Marshall now has taken on numerous leadership roles, including One Love, his school’s most popular student-led club with the goal of teaching peers about healthy relationships.
Marshall’s decision to go “all in” as a school leader represents the sort of intrinsic motivation typical of what excites boys in school, experts say.
Girls tend to be much more motivated by extrinsic factors than boys. Teachers responding to the EdWeek Research Center survey were nearly twice as likely to report female students were motivated “a lot” or “a fair amount” by a desire to pursue advanced coursework or higher education and test scores and grades, than their male students.
One motivating factor teachers say has a similar sway over both boys and girls: competition among classmates. Sixty percent of teachers say competition motivates their male students a lot or a fair amount, and 65 percent said the same about female students.
Many educators who teach in all-boys environments say that group competition—between classes or even grades—inspires their students to both do their best work and be on their best behavior. For example, the Boys’ Latin middle school leans into a competition to see which student advisory group can accrue the most “Laker Bucks,” which represent points for positive behavior. At the end of each quarter, the group of boys that has earned the most “bucks” gets to choose a prize, such as a pizza lunch.
The process is a way to publicly acknowledge when a young male student shows positive behavior, like pushing his chair in before exiting class or helping a classmate solve a math problem.
Classroom lessons that link to real-world applications, especially those directly connected to boys’ personal interests, also tend to motivate male students to learn, experts say.
Education Week
