Posted on 06/01/2009 12:02:34 PM PDT by reaganaut1
As the nation embarks on high school graduation season, The Choice was reminded of a study published last summer that sought to compare male and female high school valedictorians.
The goal of the study, by an economics professor at Meredith College in North Carolina, was to examine the college choices, intended majors and career aspirations of high-achieving boys and girls, and see if there were any differences. Specifically, the study examined 150 valedictorians from high schools from the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, and surrounding counties.
Its main conclusion? That when stacked up against the boys, the female valedictorians tended to choose less selective colleges and plan careers in lower-paying occupations. While the girls were more likely to major in the humanities and social sciences, the boys were more likely to plan to major in math, computer science and engineering.
I reached out this morning to Anne York, the economist who researched and wrote the study, to ask what conclusions parents or students might draw from it. When asked why the female valedictorians were less likely to signal an interest in being an engineer, or surgeon, she said, “The typical reason is that they are worried about combining family and career one day in the future.”
While that’s not necessarily a new thought, Professor York’s research seems noteworthy for pinpointing how early in a young woman’s life such decisions are being made. And what questions were raised about her findings regarding boys?
“If a male valedictorian is interested in an English degree, do his parents support him in that?” she asked. “Or do they say, ‘What are you going to do with that?’ ”
She added, “Why don’t we have more men in the humanities and social sciences?
(Excerpt) Read more at thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I have worked at financial firms for more than a decade and have noticed that the wives of many high-earning men, especially those with children, do not want to work full time but would rather take care of their families. The husbands of high-earning usually do not have this option (and many would not take it if they could).
Sure. How often does the prom king desire to be a “housewife?”
“While the girls were more likely to major in the humanities and social sciences, the boys were more likely to plan to major in math, computer science and engineering.”
More studies to demonstrate what everyone already knows, to the extent that it has become a cliché that only feminists are silly enough to dispute.
Does she know that men don't have vaginas? I really wonder sometimes if liberals do.
This report is BS. If you look at Medical school admissions, there are more females than males. In fact, about 90% of all pharmacist in US are females. What a junkie-style report.
“She added, “Why don’t we have more men in the humanities and social sciences?”
This question leaves me speachless yet wanting to rant.
How long do we hafta wait for Captain Obvious to show up?
I can’t wait till the NYT’s is dead...
The report focused on valedictorians, not on all graduates. Do you have stats on medical school admissions for valedictorians?
“...“She added, “Why don’t we have more men in the humanities and social sciences?”...”
Perhaps men, as stupid as they are, don’t want to have a set of credentials that attest to this stupidity.
Our medical center is filled with female physicians and female medical students. So many smart, ambitious ones seem to jump right to medicine and totally avoid engineering degrees.
I’d hypothesize another factor. Perhaps only a minor one.
Given that males tend to be more likely to be at the extremes of intelligence (the tails of the bell curve);
Given that being valedictorian is not an absolute measure of intelligence, but a relative measure in the context of a single school;
Given that some schools are crappy, and are avoided by high-intelligence kids;
I propose that Crappy schools tend to have valedictorian who are not highly intelligent, but merely above average. these are as likely to be female as male, and they are likely to have modest aspirations.
At better schools, where the competition is fiercer, and where the smartest of both sexes tend to be attracted or retained, the deciding factor may be more extreme intelligence, and thus males have the advantage. This population of male-dominated valedictorians will tend to set their sights on more ambitions careers and prestigious schools.
A variant on this may be that girls tend to reach the top more by hard work, and boys by intelligence, and these differences lead to the different choices in life.
But the most logical approach is that males don’t have child rearing as a success path, and are less likely to shun the most aggressive path available, compared to girls.
That’s an interesting analysis. Did you follow the Larry Summers women-in-science controversy, where he made an argument based on males having more variability in intelligence?
What i was trying to say is that this report is making an assumption that not too many females are interested in fields of science. math & engineering. You are right that this article is about valedictions; but it is about the degrees for themselves afterwords which the report fail to look at that.
Yeah. Same thing.
I think the difference is no more complicated than that most boys are programmed that they must be providers and get high-paying jobs while most girls straddle the choice of being a secondary bread-winner and principle caregiver. Most aren’t raised to think they must make a big salary and spend all day at the office the way most men are.
Besides social pressures, there is a basic underlying hard-wiring factor. Males on average are wired differently than females on average and nothing is going to ever makes them choose interests or careers in equals percentages.
Medicine is a soft science. I’m supprized that women didn’t take over the field 50 years ago.
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