Some thoughts, probably a bit ramble-y: For whatever reason, I don't know why, it seems like young boys have less 'intrinsic motivation' to learn and gain skills than girls. This means that if a boy wants to grow up into some career... then they need someone to guide them and provide a trajectory with a series of tangible accomplishments to get there. Without that guidance, very few boys have the ability to manage it themselves, and even fewer if the accomplishments are amorphous concepts, like 'learning' and 'understanding'. They need to see an effect of what they're learning in the real world, somehow. I don't know why... maybe to compare themselves against other students? To feel like they exist?

In the past, maybe 20-30 years ago, it seems like parents or the school system would have identified the boys lacking intrinsic motivation, and track them into something else. For example, if a boy wants to become a pilot, but doesn't know any actual pilots, there's no flight school nearby or they can't afford it, and the school doesn't have any teachers who know anything about flying, and he doesn't seem focused enough to learn on his own... then he would have been nudged into something else. Probably toward a trade or other blue collar job, which inherently have defined training programs with tangible steps of accomplishment that can keep students interested and motivated (or they won't require much training at all).

For whatever reason, that kind of tracking and nudging isn't as prevalent anymore? I don't know... Part of it is probably the push to send everyone to college, but also a general disdain for trades in the education system. Though it is true that blue collar jobs mostly don't pay as much as they used to, relative to white collar degree-requiring jobs, so I can understand that sentiment... But, no tracking/nudging means that more students are essentially being left to fend for themselves in terms of motivation, and harder today than 20 years ago. Why spend time studying a topic that won't provide any tangible sense of accomplishment for maybe 5 to 10 years... when you can play a video game with a literal 'Accomplishment' badges?

Yes, it's unfortunate that the boy who wanted to become a pilot wasn't really given that opportunity... but is it worse for him to be nudged into a different career than him for him to play video games through his teens, drop out of college, and then working sporadic service jobs? I don't know...

From my own life, I know that I was pretty unmotivated throughout school up until my junior year when I was able to take a basic programming course (not actual BASIC... it was C console apps). I didn't have the intrinsic motivation to learn coding on my own... I just wanted to play Counter-Strike and WoW. After that class though, my grades all started improving, and I did well through my CS degree and afterwards. Without that one programming course... who knows what would have happened? Or, what if I could have taken it earlier in high school? Or if my school had more than one programming course?

What's my point here? Not sure... maybe we as as a society should realize (again) that kids need real guidance in their education. Especially boys. They need to feel a sense of direction beyond just learning for learning's sake. If we're going to give every kid the opportunity to chase their dreams, then we'll need to re-think the structure of our education system. More investment to expand topics being taught, more structured curricula with periodic tangible accomplishments, more student tracking/nudging, more specialized magnet schools, maybe even boarding schools to bring students to certain training programs.

For whatever reason, a lot of girls seem to be doing fine in the system as it is. The article has some thoughts, but I can't come up with any theories myself.