Educational Psychology: Gender differences

[spudpeel]

I am currently studying educational psychology, and have just covered a study by Mellanby et al. which suggests that the reason for girls exceeding boys academically is due to the curricula and the schooling being more suited to girls. What exactly is meant by this, and how is it possible to actually scientifically prove this?

[sunspot]

Males and females differ by two simple things. Males are motivated by the desire tone due to the daily production of sperm and the daily instinctive induction needed to express that potential. Female sexuality is more connected to a fear tone; needed to provide security for pregnancy and children. The female monthly cycle provides a secondary layer of potential ranging from hunger, desire, anger, etc. But beneath this is the primary potential need for security.

 

This natural background fear/anxiety tone is responsible for why women are more often perfectionists. Being perfect or going alone with tradtion allows one to appease fear and social insecurity. The background desire potential within men is less concerned with perfection, as it is with completeness and even risk. Men are not afraid to blow their money on females or to give up their security to seek fortune and fame; gold rush fever, exploration, new theories, etc.

 

Education has become more of a beaurocracy with a fixed party line. This is more in line with the needs of female perfectionism. Men are more motivated toward change, risk and the generating the needed ingenuity. But much of this goes against the party line needs of the beaucrocracy requiring men become more like women (perfectionists). Perfectionism does not fully accommodate the natural desire potential within men. Sciences like physics, which are still dominated by men, require living on the frontiers of knowledge, which is more natural for men. As physics become a beaucrocracy, females will use their perfectism to become part. Females are the caretakers of traditions. While males are the potential for change.

 

If change occurred too fast males would be more optimized but female insecurity would be at a maximum. This worse case scenario is war. If change occurs too slow, then female insecurity is appeased but male desire for change and improvement is repressed by necessity. The worse case scenario is insecure beaurocracy. Culture needs to find a balance between fear and desire that will maximize the utility in both.

 

Personally, I like the ideas of women running the beaurocracies, since their perfectionism is natural. At the same time, females are used to dealing with children and are encouraging their individuality. This would provide a natural state where men are allowed freedom to pursue the intellectual objects of desire, creating progressive change for culture. These changes will be integrated into the household of humanity. Perfectist men are unnatural, such that the repression of natural desire gets distorted and becomes directed toward self interest instead of the interest of the human family.

[ecoli]

One argument that has been propsed is that young boys are more active then young girls. While girls can be perfectly happy sitting in a classroom, boys like to be active, and often have trouble learning in a classroom/lecture environment. Lots of educational methods now include "hands on" science and learning to accomodate for this.

 

While the above statements were generalizations, the truth differs from child to child, I think it's an accurate assesement of the behavior of children.

[spudpeel]

Sunspot: I follow all of that, and it all seems to make sense, but is there any hard evidence for it? I am always told that I can't say things like that without evidence and that I cannot generalise to other situations.

[sunspot]

I am not sure if there is hard evidence based on studies. However, one only has to look at data within one's own life or from history. Most of the fringe pioneers were male. Exploration often involves risking life and limb, i.e., desire before fear. There were many important female pioneers but usually they would not stray too far from the limits of traditions i.e., desire and fear. Females have the best memories, on the average, especially for names and rituals. This memory capacitance helps maintain cultural traditions and is dieally suited to beaucrocracy. Females are also better at accommodating differences within the family, so that even the rebellious son is loved. This would make the ideal beaurocracy because it would allow even marginal seed ideas to take root to see where they go.