Title: Learning the hard way : masculinity, place, and the gender gap in education /
Authors: Morris, Edward W., 1973-
Publisher: Rutgers University Press,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Sex differences in education United States Case studies.; High school boys United States Social conditions Case studies.; Men United States Identity Case studies.; Black people Race identity United States Case studies.; Academic achievement United States Case studies
Abstract: An avalanche of recent newspapers, weekly news magazines, scholarly journals, and academic books has helped to spark a heated debate by publishing warnings of a "boy crisis" in which male students at all academic levels have begun falling behind their female peers. In this book the author explores and analyzes detailed ethnographic data on this purported gender gap between boys and girls in educational achievement at two low-income high schools, one rural and predominantly white, the other urban and mostly African American. Crucial questions arose from his study of gender at these two schools. Why did boys tend to show less interest in and more defiance toward school? Why did girls significantly outperform boys at both schools? Why did people at the schools still describe boys as especially "smart"? The author examines these questions and, in the process, illuminates connections of gender to race, class, and place. This book is not simply about the educational troubles of boys, but the troubled and complex experience of gender in school. It reveals how particular race, class, and geographical experiences shape masculinity and femininity in ways that affect academic performance. His findings add a new perspective to the "gender gap" in achievement.
Contents: Introduction -- Respect and respectability -- The "hidden injuries" of gender -- Too cool for school: masculinity and the contradictions of achievement -- "Rednecks" and "rutters": rural masculinity and class anxiety -- "Clownin'" and "riffin'": urban masculinity and the complexity of race -- "Girls just care about it more": femininity and achievement as resistance -- Friday night fights.