Long-Term Negative Effect on Boys of School Discipline

“The way schools respond to boys’ behaviors plays a significant role in shaping their educational outcomes years later,” asserts Lauren Camera in a US News and World Report article. “In fact,” Camera explains, “behavioral problems in early childhood have a larger negative effect on high school and college completion rates for boys than girls, according to a study from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. They’re also less likely to learn and more likely to be held back in school.

‘It suggests that something is going on in the school context that makes boys bear the brunt of school sanctioning,’ says Jayanti Owens, assistant professor of sociology and public affairs at Brown and author of the report, published by the American Sociological Association and the Sociology of Education.”

And in his new book Oh Boy!, author Francis Wardle addresses this same issue:

"I think a radical change is needed in order to fully meet the needs of young boys. A place to start is recognizing that typical boy behaviors like lack of attention, risk taking, poor emotional regulation, full body movement, and messy exploration of the physical world, are the norm, and not the exception.”

Source: “Boys Bear the Brunt of School Discipline,” by Lauren Camera, US News and World Report. June 22, 2016

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