How School Characteristics Affect Boys’ and Girls’ Educational Success

This study investigated how school resources, being schools’ socioeconomic composition, proportion of girls, and proportion of highly educated teachers, and school practices, being schools’ application of well-rounded assessment methods, influenced girls’ and boys’ reading performance differently. The results showed that boys profited more than girls from having a large proportion of girls in school. Contrary to their expectations, girls gained more than boys from a school’s advantaged socioeconomic composition. The findings are likely to add to the debate over single-sex education, as districts experiment with single-sex classes and schools. Additionally, this study helps shed light on whether school characteristics affect girls’ and boys’ educational performance differently.

van Hek, M., Kraaykamp, G., & Pelzer, B. (2017): Do schools affect girls’ and boys’ reading performance differently? A multilevel study on the gendered effects of school resources and school practices. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2017.1382540

Boys' reading report

The UK's National Literacy Trust has published a report on  boys' reading issues. They explain the gap, noting the factors of gender identity, school, and home. They also provide several key recommendations to address the problem. Read the report at http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0001/4056/Boys_Commission_Report.pdf

Reluctant male readers and ereaders study

Previous research in the field has shown that upper elementary and middle school students tend to read less than younger students because of time spent with their friends and in other activities. Also, these same students, particularly boys, may not value reading as much as they did when they were younger. Among those students, research has shown that low-skilled readers have trouble starting, continuing and finishing a book, and that they are stymied by vocabulary and reading comprehension challenges. Skilled readers, on the other hand, enjoy books. Researchers have suggested that technological gadgets, enlarged text and a more favorable environment might encourage reluctant readers. For those reasons the authors pursued a study to see how reluctant readers would respond to e-readers. The study study presents reasons e-readers may be beneficial, in particular, to reluctant readers in middle grades.
Williams-Rossi, Miranda, T., Johnson, K., & McKenzie, N. (2012). Reluctant Readers in Middle School: Successful Engagement with Text Using the E-Reader. International Journal of Applied Science and Technology.
http://tinyurl.com/d3b6avw.

Video game study

Boys who received video systems immediately spend more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than comparison children. They also had lower reading and writing scores and greater teacher-reported academic problems at follow-up than comparison children. Amount of video-game play mediated the relationship between video-game ownership and academic outcomes. Results provide experimental evidence that video games may displace after-school activities that have educational value and may interfere with the development of reading and writing skills in some children.
Weis, R., and Cerankosky, B. (2010, March). Effects of Video-Game Ownership on Young Boys’ Academic and Behavioral Functioning. Psychological Science.

Boys and reading study

Study: Boys respond better to female reading aides
Boys struggling to read develop better feelings about themselves as readers when working with female teachers, according to a new Canadian study of 175 urban third- and fourth-grade boys published in the May 2007 issue of Sex Roles. "The strategic hiring of male teachers as a way to address boys' poor reading scores may be naïve," said University of Alberta professor Herb Katz. ScienceDaily (8/23)