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News & Views - Aug,
1998 Issue #53
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RESEARCH IN BOYS DEVELOPMENT
(The last couple decades have seen considerable research
and discussion about how girls develop, focusing on a loss of self esteem that seems to happen about the time of puberty. Currently
there are several researchers racing toward publication with comparable research on boys development, seeming to suggest boys go through
a somewhat comparable critical stage at about ages 5 to 7. The following are comments from some of the leading researchers, as contained
in Education Week, May 13, 1998, p. 37, in an article by Debra Viadero -Ed..)
“The way we bring up boys leads them to what I call this ‘Mask of Masculinity.’”
-William Pollack, psychiatrist
“Schools for the most part are run by women for girls. To take a high-spirited
2nd or 3rd grade boy and expect him to behave like a girl in school is asking too much.”
- Christina Hoff Sommers, Clark University
(paraphrased) Boys from single sex schools were less defensive and
less susceptible to peer pressures than boys in coed schools. Also, they were more egalitarian in viewing men’s and women’s roles,
more comfortable in relations with girls and felt they had more control over their academic performance.
-Diane J. Hulse, Collegiate School, NYC
Copyright © 1998, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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