Listening to the boys: issues and problems influencing school achievement and retention

Authors

Malcolm Slade, Flinders University

Publication Date

4-2002

Files

Subjects

Academic achievement, Attitudes, Educational sociology, Gender differences, Males, School holding power

Comments

Flinders University Institute of International Education research collection ; n.5

Abstract

This work summarises the views of 1800 boys, from 60 secondary schools in South Australia, balanced across all sectors. Their views have been clear and largely uniform across the schools, year levels and levels of achievement. Several popularly held views, that the problems start in the primary years, and that the issues are reducible to matters of gender difference, gender equity, peer pressure or literacy and numeracy, are rejected, by the boys and others, as simplistic to the point of being false. Issues about masculinity are conspicuous in their absence. Instead, the boys identify a broad range of interconnected factors, fundamental to which is that the adult world is not really listening and not genuinely interested in either their concerns or their future needs.

Recommended Citation

Slade, M. (2002, April 01). Listening to the boys: issues and problems influencing school achievement and retention. Shannon Research Press. https://research.acer.edu.au/saier/5

Copyright Statement

Copyright Malcolm Slade, 2002

Place of Publication

Adelaide, Australia

Publisher

Shannon Research Press

ISBN

0-9580704-0-7

Geographic Subject

South Australia