BringBackBoys
Latest Articles
Bridging the male education gap
In a recent survey of American 15-year-olds, 73% of adolescent girls expected to work in managerial, professional or higher technical jobs, versus only 53% of the boys. Boys were much more likely than girls (9% as opposed to 2%) to expect to make their living as athletes or work in other sports jobs or as musicians.
The School to Prison Pipeline
The policies have not made schools safer. However, by criminalizing routine disciplinary problems, they have damaged the lives of many children by making them more likely to drop out and entangling them, sometimes permanently, in the criminal justice system.
On School Shooters
An interesting account of one teacher's experience as an outcasted youth. In light of the recent school shooting this blogger describes his isolated youth and his relationship to violent video games and how they have shaped his view.
How to Make School Better for Boys
This timely Åtlantic Magazine article tackles the issue of the growing gender divide in school success for boys and girls. Author Christina Hoff Summers offers a well-balanced and refreshing overview of the politics that prevent more attention being paid to an issue many influential scholars view as one of the critical issues of our time. In the words of Hoff-Summers, "American boys across the ability spectrum are struggling in the nation’s schools, with teachers and administrators failing to engage their specific interests and needs. This neglect has ominous implications not only for the boy's social and intellectual development but for the national economy, as policy analysts are just beginning to calculate."
Media Talks
View Ali's TedxPSU Talk and NPR Boston interview on re-engage boys in learning.
Ask Ali
Frequently asked questions and misconceptions of research discussed.
Rough Play is Good for Boys
Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry and clinical research, he first discovered the importance of play by discerning its absence in a carefully studied group of homicidal young males, beginning with the University of Texas Tower mass murderer Charles Whitman. His cataloging of their profiles demonstrated the active presence of play in the accomplishments of the very successful and also identified negative consequences that inevitably accumulate in a play-deprived life.
Simon Says Don't Use Flash Cards
The key to games education is to start with a simple game and add increasingly complicated rules. For instance, Oregon researchers have developed a game called Head-to-Toes, which they use to assess preschool children’s development. Initially, the child copies the teacher’s movements, touching her head or toes. But later, the child is expected to do the opposite, touching her toes when the teacher touches her head.
Bridging the Education Gap
It's clear we need to encourage adolescent boys to adopt expectations in line with the job market, and to free themselves from anti-academic male stereotypes. If they can be helped to better understand the connection between doing well in school and getting a good job, they might see reasons to work harder in middle and high school.
What can we do?
Supporting Resources
In the 2006 PBS documentary, Raising Cain: Boys in Focus, we learned that shockingly, 85% of all stimulant medications are prescribed to American boys.
The facts are plain, if puzzling: Not only do women enter college at higher rates than men, but they're less likely to drop out once they get there. Female grads now account for about 60% of U.S. bachelor's degree holders.
We found that in countries around the world, but especially the United States, even kindergarteners are spending an increasing amount of time being taught or tested in literacy and math. This mandated curriculum leaves little time for child-initiated learning or unstructured play and contributes to a rise in aggression and anxiety in young children. And, importantly, they don’t have the opportunity to develop critical social-emotional skills.
In the 2006 PBS documentary, Raising Cain: Boys in Focus, we learned that shockingly, 85% of all stimulant medications are prescribed to American boys.
Bring Back Boys
is a research-based Website that focuses on the familial, social, cultural and educational factors that relate to the healthy growth and development of boys.
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