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The Forum > Article Comments > Educational sexism in Queensland > Comments

Educational sexism in Queensland : Comments

By John Ridd, published 26/4/2013

Comparing Core Skills Tests with OP and gender suggests that Queensland boys are being shafted.

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Dr Ridd would do well to consider the following points.
Why does he regard the CST as the benchmark against which school results should be compared, rather than the other way around?
To what extent is success on a pencil and paper test measuring test taking ability rather than knowledge and understanding and the ability to apply them?
How can a pencil and paper test examine research skills, oral ability and even practical skills of science experiments which he seems to desire, as school assessments are designed to do?
Has he considered the evidence of prediction to success at university, where such indices as the OP, ATAR etc. are shown to be no better, and in most studies worse, predictors than school assessments, presumably because success at university is as much a function of organizational skills, persistence, research ability and other such abilities which tests are simply not designed to measure, but which clearly affect school results.
Posted by Godo, Friday, 26 April 2013 8:19:54 AM
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John, an excellent quantification of the problem that has been readily observable for years.

It plays itself out in the fact that over 40 percent of young women now have tertiary qualifications compared to less then 30 percent of their male peers.

The real problem for society that create is that it is less efficient, in terms of ROI to invest in female education than male, because women will, on average, work less across their lifetime than men will.

It's exacerbated by the fact that women tend to concentrate in just a few sectors, nearly all of which are reliant on government for funding, either directly or indirectly. That cannot be sustained.
Posted by Antiseptic, Friday, 26 April 2013 8:51:10 AM
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The Queensland based OP system is a travesty, based on dubious education theory, passed off for almost 40 years now by the Queensland Studies Authority as a radical advance in improving teaching and assessment.
The people who promoted this farce in the first place were of the generation which wore flared trousers and paisley body shirts. The fad of QSA assessment is just as dated.
The notion that teachers can better use the letters A,B,C,D,E to score pupil responses than they can by giving the pupil's answers marks and percentages is such an obvious nonsense you would have thought someone would have noticed. The fact that no one has, is a harsh judgement on the intellectual capital of the state.
Dr Ridd clearly points out gender discrimination as one of the more odious injustices of the fraud which is QSA assessment methodology.
Although QSA has loudly proclaimed their approach to school based assessment as ‘world’s best practise’ for almost four decades the rest of the world has remained politely indifferent by ignoring it. Certainly those jurisdictions at the top of international student achievements will not have a bar of it.
Which, I suppose is why they are improving while Queensland academic performance continues its four decade long decline.
A committee of the Queensland has the QSA under the spotlight and one can only hope that the pupils in Queensland schools and their parents and teachers will soon be released from the nonsense QSA has inflicted upon them.
QSA and its dated assessment fads need to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Well done John Ridd
Posted by CARFAX, Friday, 26 April 2013 10:30:47 AM
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Concerning CARFAX's comment that 'Queensland academic performance continues its four decade long decline', let's look at some facts.

In the 2009 PISA tests of 15 year olds in Mathematics, 12 countries scored significantly better than Australia (regarding Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau and Taipei as separate ‘countries’), 5 scored the same as Australia. Australia scored significantly better than the remaining 34 countries.

Within Australia, Queensland results were not significantly different from those in other States, except for Tasmania and Northern Territory, where Queensland students scored significantly better. In science, Australia did even better, and the pattern across States was the same.

In the 2011 TIMMS tests for year 8, Australia was significantly outscored by only 6 countries and was significantly better than 27 countries. Australia’s average Year 8 mathematics score was not significantly different to the achieved score in TIMSS 1995.

In year 4, three states scored significantly higher than Queensland, but in year 8, only the ACT did. It is clear from these figures that the key issue for Queensland is in the early years, presumably because of the later school starting age in that State, a matter addressed by the decisions of the Bligh government.

In short, there is no evidence of the decline being claimed here, and Queensland students have been doing quite well considering the fewer years of schooling and other features of the State’s population.
Posted by Godo, Friday, 26 April 2013 11:25:15 AM
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OK GODO
Where is your evidence for;

Has he considered the evidence of prediction to success at university, where such indices as the OP, ATAR etc. are shown to be no better, and in most studies worse, predictors than school assessments

And

Are you seriously offering your three cherry picked examples of PISA and TIMMS for scattered cohorts in Queensland between 2009 and 2011 as a comprehensive response to the issues raised and cited in John Ridd's essay?
Posted by CARFAX, Friday, 26 April 2013 12:29:25 PM
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Godo,

A kindly meant suggestion.
Near the start of the article the author refers the reader to another OLO aricle about the maths/science situation in Australia/Queensland. I suggest that you should read it with some care. That would avoid you making any more rather silly comments about standards.

Kind regards
Posted by eyejaw, Friday, 26 April 2013 2:13:46 PM
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Great article, well researched, although I wonder how many of our more recent graduates would be able to understand the tables provided. So many would not have even the minor bit of math required.

The current system was obviously introduced for 4 reasons.

1/ It may even have been a legitimate attempt to help those who suffer exam nerves. The fact that being trained to be able to perform under a little pressure should be part of education is totally ignored.

2/ In school assessment allows teachers to favor some students without sanction.

3/ It favours girls who are more likely to apply themselves to home assignments.

4/ It allows totally incompetent teachers to hide this fact virtually indefinitely.

It allows those good at Google to get away with almost no knowledge of a subject, & allows the teachers pet to sail into higher education knowing almost nothing. Year 10 high school math being taught in Environmental Science BSc courses is a testament to that.

Not only is it a bad system, it is totally immoral, & virtually designed d to be rorted.

An externally set & marked final exam is the only fair way to assess students, & also allows the home schooled & self schooled to access the system. Of course it does not offer the same number of well paid jobs for teachers who don't like the classroom.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 26 April 2013 2:44:10 PM
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The trend towards verbosity in the sciences is evident in the National Curriculum. Elucidating the problem amongst the contextual verbiage is as much the challenge as solving it. The trend away from tests/exams in assessment weighting in schools and towards research assignments (annotated, referenced) generally suits the temperament of girls over boys, and success in public service "busy-work" roles.

There is also a trend towards incorporating into science what should be left to social studies departments. Beliefs and values have been imbued into the science curriculum where students must be able to wax about the social impact of scientific advancement as much as understand the science, and this is reflected in assessment weightings. This suits the female temperament over the male, IMO, at least until a few years beyond school-leaving age.

I do not believe boys are now less intelligent than girls. Something has changed in the curriculum and assessment of the sciences and whether it really reflects the needs of the external scientific world is a moot point.
Posted by Luciferase, Saturday, 27 April 2013 9:54:34 AM
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In case anyone’s still following this:

Dear CARFAX

(1) See VALIDITY OF HIGH-SCHOOL GRADES IN PREDICTING STUDENT SUCCESS BEYOND THE FRESHMAN YEAR: High-School Record vs. Standardized Tests as Indicators of Four-Year College Outcomes*
http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/ROPS.GEISER._SAT_6.12.07.pdf

(2) To prove that no cherrypicking is involved, I offer the following quotes from the ACER summary of the 2009 TIMMS.

Australia’s average Year 4 mathematics score in TIMSS 2011 was not significantly different to the achieved score in TIMSS 2007, but Australia’s 2011 score was a significant 21 points higher than in TIMSS 1995. (p. 10)

Australia’s average Year 4 science score in TIMSS 2011 was significantly lower than the achieved score in TIMSS 2007, but Australia’s 2011 score was not significantly different to the score in TIMSS 1995. (page 12)

Australia’s average Year 8 mathematics score in TIMSS 2011 was not significantly different to the achieved score in TIMSS 1995, although there have been some small fluctuations over the 16 years. (page 14)

Australia’s average Year 8 science score in TIMSS 2011 was not significantly different to the achieved score in TIMSS 1995, although there have been some fluctuations over the 16 years. (page 16)

Sue Thomson, S. et al. Highlights from TIMSS & PIRLS 2011 from Australia’s perspective. Melbourne: ACER.

Dear eyejaw
In future, if you wish to refute what someone says, I suggest you address what they said rather than change the subject. If I had time to follow this exchange any further, I’d look forward to your response to the evidence I offered, which is direct from the publication quoted above.

I won’t be looking at this exchange any longer, so don’t bother replying. I have other dragons to slay :-)
Posted by Godo, Saturday, 27 April 2013 7:06:05 PM
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It’s far too simplistic to assume that there is sex discrimination being practised against boys, based on a gender breakdown of QCST and OP scores.

Firstly, 41,330 students completed Grade 12 in 2012, but this essay concentrates only on the 25,760 students who sat for the QCST/OP. So 37% of the field data is missing.

Unlike females, many Grade 12 males opt for VET and apprenticeship training, so don’t need a high OP or an OP at all. Almost certainly, these future apprentices comprise a large portion of that 37%. The reduced number of males left to sit the QCST are likely to be more academically inclined and, thus, perform proportionally better in the ‘A’ score.

Secondly, QSA research has found that there is almost no deviation between QCST results and WSM (within school marking for OP assessment) in male-only and female-only schools. However, there is a significant deviation in co-ed schools.

[http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/publications/report_qcs_test_review_2012.pdf, p.26]

If the move to ‘social-based’ Science/Maths teaching were negatively affecting boys, then this would show up in the male-only schools results – but no such deviation exists.

So the problem seems to lie in school-based factors, e.g. location, degree of remoteness, socio-economic conditions. A much higher proportion of co-ed schools are government schools, whereas most independent schools are same-sex schools. Also, there is a much higher proportion of government located in lower socio-economic areas.

It would be better to look into these factors rather than create an unnecessary and inappropriate gender backlash.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 27 April 2013 7:33:03 PM
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Correction: second last line above should read 'of government schools'
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 27 April 2013 7:36:19 PM
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Hi Killarney,

Your point that the males who do the QCS are self selected to be better than average because lots of less academically minded males don’t sit for the QCS is true but it does not affect the analysis in this article. If the school assessment was fair, we should see the boys out-performing the girls on the school assessment and thus the OP score – because they have self selected to be better than the girls (on average). But we don’t see that. In fact they do worse than the girls.

And your point that there is “…….. no deviation between QCST results and WSM (within school marking for OP assessment) in male-only and female-only schools. However, there is a significant deviation in co-ed schools “ supports the analysis in this article. An all male or all female school will by definition not be affected by a gender bias in either the QCS or the school assessment. However one would expect to see a deviation in co-ed schools if a gender bias is occurring.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point but I think your first point is true but not relevant here and the second supports the argument in this article.

Peter Ridd
JCU
Posted by Ridd, Saturday, 27 April 2013 8:26:49 PM
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Interesting article. I'm looking forward to seeing changes to our assessment practices here in Queensland, though at the rate our policymakers move, I suspect I'll be retired before it happens. And my retirement is a long way off!

As an English teacher, I'm not able to comment directly on your observations about the science subjects, though I can safely say the removal of the dreaded EEI would be wonderful for all of us currently working in high schools. They completely miss their point:

1) If they aim to prepare students for the sciences at university, they fail. It's been a few years since I studied first-year biotech, but I certainly never completed any of the 40+ page behemoths our students are forced to churn out now. The simplicity of the experiments they complete do not justify the complexity of the write-ups that are demanded of them.

2) If they aim to assess communication, they still fail. They may even do damage elsewhere. I have looked over A-quality EEIs that are barely comprehensible. It's not the language they use - it's the ridiculous way in which they use it. It's the mock-complexity of their compound sentence after compound sentence after sentence fragment that they pass off as 'scientific expression' that is the problem. If they get away with it - indeed, are praised for it - in Chemistry, of course they're going to use the same strategies in English and any humanities they may study.

Additionally, students are so busy doing their EEIs until 2 in the morning that they scarcely have time for any other subjects. Their Physics results may be wonderful, but their shortcomings become painfully obvious elsewhere.

Not only do I agree with you that the assignments in Maths and the sciences are redundant, but I'd also like to suggest a return to numbers-based grades - rather than the current criteria-based assessment - in those areas. There are no shades of grey in maths, and very few in science, so there is no problem with numbers which, ultimately, paint the clearest and most objective picture of student ability.
Posted by Otokonoko, Saturday, 27 April 2013 10:40:47 PM
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What is the rate of the International Baccalaureate in Queensland, it is a well recognised, non-hairy palm credential that is transferable everywhere? As to higher female degree rate it should be adjusted for their propensity to do Advanced Macrame studies or Marxism in a Female Perspective, nice and making for a well rounded person, but little more than a finishing school.
Posted by McCackie, Sunday, 28 April 2013 7:37:28 AM
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Great article, but I hold little hope of things improving in the short term.

I would add that the lack of competition and discipline has also had a hugely negative impact on boys. Boys have tons of energy which needs to be controlled and channelled into useful activities. Many boys thrive on competition and the threat of having their name 'written on the board' just doesn't cut for those boys who need a firmer hand.

40 years of constant devaluing and demonising of men by feminists has had an immensly negative impact on society. Many women refuse to recognise that men are important in boys lives and feel they can do the job themselves. Everything goes well until the boy reaches puberty and realises he is bigger than his mother and that there's nothing she can do to stop him doing what he wants. Meanwhile, the boy, having no male role model at home or at school, is left to his own devices to work out what it means to be a man. Sometimes it turns out okay, other times, not (refer to rates of male suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, incarceration and premature death).

You would think feminists would call that a pretty good victory but even our ardently feminist prime minister can't escape the victim mentality. She holds the highest office in the land but hasn't accepted responsibility for a single failure. Typical woman.

Getting back to the article. The other misapprehension I have is that you assume that because women say they want equality they want equality. That is very naive. When men run things that's called patriarchy but when women run things that's called equality (until things go wrong; then it's all men's fault).

The campaign to demonise male sexuality has been a huge success too. Males dare not go anywhere near a school now for fear of being cast as a predator. Radical feminsts have control of our most vulnerable citizens: our boys. And it is doing enormours damage to our society.
Posted by dane, Sunday, 28 April 2013 10:52:35 PM
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Peter Ridd

I was not disputing your facts, only the premise you have drawn from them, i.e. ‘… that presently we have statewide systematic sex discrimination on a huge scale.’

First, you provide incomplete statistics that show boys are getting higher grades on the QCST but don’t offer any reasons why. So the reader is left to assume that boys must be inherently brighter than girls. Frankly, I call that ‘sex discrimination’ of a different kind. Surely some defence of the female IQ was in order.

Then, you provide statistics to show how boys are underachieving on OP scores, but the only explanation you offer (other than ‘statewide systematic sex discrimination’) is the ‘over verbosity’ of assignment-based school assessment in Science and Maths. So again, the reader is left to assume that some kind of stereotypical gasbagging garrulousness inherent in the makeup of girls has given them the upper hand. (It’s a quick jump from there to that good old backlash argument that feminists have taken over the education sector and rigged the system to favour girls.)

I pointed out that the problem of OP underachievement does not happen with boys in same-sex schools, so that rules out the ‘verbosity’ argument. However, you ignored my point that co-ed schools are mainly government schools, which have a much higher proportion of students in isolated areas and from lower socio-economic backgrounds – both of which are well documented as being major contributors to underachievement in boys.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 29 April 2013 5:06:12 AM
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Godo,

Your single example of the relative prognostic value of methods for selecting candidates for undergraduate study is drawn from USA where the process is vastly different from any Australian jurisdiction.

You defend cherry picking by quoting from an ACER summary of the 2009 TIMMS, which addresses a snapshot of general Australian outcomes? Dr Ridds piece was about gender inequity in the QSA OP process and an ongoing decline in Queensland's academic standards particularly in Math and Science.

You might be wise to consider the generous advice give by eyejaw and at least look at the material referred to at the beginning of by Dr Ridd's commentary.

Or you might be wise to move onto another topic with a less demanding body of evidence
Dragons might not be a bad choice
Posted by CARFAX, Monday, 29 April 2013 9:08:23 AM
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"I pointed out that the problem of OP underachievement does not happen with boys in same-sex schools, so that rules out the ‘verbosity’ argument. "

Perhaps because the external core knowledge test is used to moderate school grades/marks, boys in single-sex schools who do well as a cohort in the external exam have their lower-than-girl-school grades moderated upwards by their better core test performance. The problem is masked.

In the co-ed situation girls grade better than boys, on average, and their OPs benefit.

To suggest there is a feminist plot here is far fetched but something is going on that is mitigating against boys and their temperament/nature. Are the changes brought to science education and assessment, that appear to have affected boys' performance, relevant to real world societal needs?

IMO, the influence of social science upon natural science is holding too much sway. It is post-modernism given too much head that is the problem. Science education needs to get back to its roots for boys to again excel in it. More science needs to be done than written about.

See http://rc10.overture.com/d/sr/?xargs=15KPjg1n5St5auwuf0L%5FiXEbqUkwwBl%2Du997pnCpd7a9JfgQZoVfYuPa7By%5FVIY%2D1kmwvSuIeRj9IXOqz2nv2UEwiNW1KBEf3%2D3onSnN8wdfz4DI8U0qNrl6j%5Fz9NDX2cOUl6VOsTvyOPNJcCoaHMZr91KkULHkrI7kI3lnfFPVLfQzgMg9l3CcMFQ2ZAR08Gbbd5JQK1KKoeH1H%5FNKdwVn4UkjrLmaT9XGTRe3l5j7QvCWQo56Zj9T8gE3eyk2I2OOKvwnc8PIkmS4qVu6T%2Dm%2DQ%2E%2E
Posted by Luciferase, Monday, 29 April 2013 9:36:48 AM
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I think you're partly right, Luciferase, but you forget that the systemic changes that favour girls are a response to enormous amounts of feminist hand-wringing in the 70s and 80s and that the people now in charge of curricula and setting assessment criteria are the very same people who were marching in the streets to protest "discrimination" against girls and would happily do so again tomorrow.

Their policies are deliberately intended to favour the learning and assessment styles that girls prefer, which also happen to fit well with the post-modernist fervour for deconstruction and circularity rather than with a positivist approach.

Science education, on the other hand MUST emphasise postitivism and psot-positivism, or it will fail at producing scientists. There is no useful way to deconstruct chemical bonding modes, or vector sums, or matrix operations. They are the product of learned observation and rigorously positivist application of reason and they are only amenable to being taught in a similar way. No amount of advocacy or self-referential circularity will provide an understanding, or even improve the understanding provided by a mathematical modelled approach.

The failure of our education system is that we have allowed feminist, post-modernist fools and charlatans to drive out those who are capable of applying such rigour from the teaching profession. It is no surprise that the charlatans have inherited the reins and the enterprise is failing boys. To those people that is precisely the outcome that was aimed for.

Killarney, not all stats are created equal. Your effort to muddy the waters is a case in point.
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 29 April 2013 2:26:37 PM
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Yes, yes, we know you think those dastardly 'feminists' are at it again Antiseptic.
This dreadful hidden conspiracy against men and boys is apparently rampant in our education system...and every where else too, no doubt?

What I can't understand is how all these dreaded feminists managed to avoid having sons or grandsons?
If they couldn't practice sex selection, then I imagine many did have sons and that they loved them and wanted to see they had a good education and succeed in life?

Why then would there be this so-called sexism in education in Queensland then?
Couldn't it merely mean that girls are given the same opportunities and encouragement in education now that boys have always been given?
Maybe that's why the girl's results have improved?

If the boys do appear to be falling behind the girls academically, then why aren't their parents doing something about it? Surely we all love our boys as much as our girls, and want to see them succeed, feminist mothers or teachers or not?
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 12:42:44 AM
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Sadly Susie, there is no shortage of examples of ideology trumping other factors.

Besides, I'd bet London to a brick that few of those educational femocrats have ever had their own children at the mercy of the public education system.

The article was about Qld, but the same forces are at play all over the country. http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Censored-the-boys-own-manual/2005/05/02/1114886318639.html

It's fascinating that you seem to find it more palatable to blame everyone BUT the very people in charge of curricula and assessments though. Another example of ideology trumping rationality, perhaps.
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 4:15:17 AM
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Sorry, forgot to add this:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/09/feminists-the-faceless-women-of-the-alp/

Nothing of substance, but lots of affirmations that "women are better than men, so there" and an obvious commitment to ideology over rationality.

One of the women spoken of in glowimg terms as a shining light of feminism is Sharan Burrow, now off spreading the faith at the ITUC.

" we have a Labor woman feminist and EMILY’s List Australia member doing this right now. Former ACTU President Sharan Burrow didn’t retire to the north coast, she is now the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation no less."

Care to guess what Ms Burrow's profession is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharan_Burrow

"She graduated in teaching with the University of NSW in 1976 and became a teacher in the early 1980s, which allowed her to become involved in the New South Wales Teachers Federation. She later became President of the Bathurst Trades and Labor Council. Before becoming President of the ACTU she was also President of the Australian Education Union (AEU) in 1992."

Care to guess how many children Ms Burrow has managed to produce?
Posted by Antiseptic, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 4:28:03 AM
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No Antiseptic, I'm still not convinced .

Did Ms Burrow have brothers, nephews, and close friend's male children she may have been fond of, even if she didn't have kids herself?

Just because you might push for equal rights for women in education, and in society in general, doesn't make you a male hater.
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 9:19:09 AM
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I do not think that there has been any intentional anti-male agenda by QSA, education faculties or others.
However just because there have been no intention to bias against boys does not mean that there has been no actual discriminatory outcomes. The original article puts forward arguments that the present system favours girls. It does not impute intention. I think that is unfair to claim that there has been deliberate sexism, but it is much worse for people to deny that the outcomes are de facto sexist. Even worse would be any suggestion that the girls deserve to do better. That would be sexism at it's crudest.
A quotation from a paper 'Can we tell the difference and does it matter' by Gabrielle Matters et al which dealt with the emerging problem of weaker male performance back in 1999; merits careful thought.
'Some reasons suggested for their poor performance such as "boys are not so mature as girls" or "boys have to be taught to create a caring environment" (Biddulph 1994,1997) may be seen as suggesting the need for a redefinition of masculinity. Imagine the reaction 20 years ago if it had neen suggested that girls should be taught to create a studious environment, say, as an antidote to their percieved poor performance.'
Matters et al continue: 'There is no parallel, it would seem, between solutions to the problems now faced by boys and to those previously faced by girls.' The girls, in the main, were to have something external transform their lives: the boys, it is suggested, have to transform themselves'

I have seen that idea put elsewhere thus:'When the boys beat the girls we changed the system. Now the girls beat the boys we expect the boys to change themselves'.
Posted by eyejaw, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 10:25:08 AM
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In making science more 'accessible' to girls something was lost for boys. There was no 'plot' against anybody. The question, if it can be answered, is whether this change produces the best outcomes for science and society.

Science has not been a glamorous school subject in students' eyes for some years and perhaps this is wrapped up in the changes. Were the changes a response to this or the cause of it?
Posted by Luciferase, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 10:54:36 AM
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To bring economics into this debate I think is worth while.
Australia is at a cross roads, economically how do we sustain our current life style? We either drop our standard of living so we can compete with other nations with low wages thus making traditional manufacturing feasible. Or we venture into high technology (HT).
HT is the only way in which we can sustain ourselves. For this to happen we need as many skilled people as we can get. This outcome will effect each and everyone of us for decades to come.
It is imperative for all of us that those with the IQ are educated and educated well, regardless of sex or economic background. This has to happen for Australia to simply survive. To quote a previous PM "Australia faces becoming a banana republic", this wasn't true at the time. But is is now. If there is a problem, we need to fix it.
Posted by JustGiveMeALLTheFacts, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 12:16:34 PM
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Susie,

I'm sure Ms Burrow does have male relatives but I'm also sure they would have been raised to 'respect' women. And we all know what that means: all criticism is misogynist and deference to the point of grovelling subservience.

Just look at TV shows like Who's Raymond or practically any other contemporary show where men are only ever portrayed as bumbling fools, while women are portrayed as strong, independent and of course always right.

These same people are the types who run our schools. It's such a shame our society feels it has to disadvantage boys so that our betters (females) can get ahead. It's a shame because China and upcoming countries aren't obsessed by putting females in charges (and hasn't that been a success). They are only concerned with winning in international trade and achieving the affluence that we so take for granted that we are willing to throw it away for 'equality'.

On a related note I notice women have finally achieved 'equality' in the Miles Franklin award. Or at least with only female finalists, that is what women would call equality.
Posted by dane, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 6:39:34 PM
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Luciferase,

I'm amazed you say there was no plot against anybody. When you have a plethora of government and non-government agencies operating with the sole agenda of advantaging girls to the detriment of boys, it seems pretty close to a plot to me. I must admit that contrary to most plots there has been no secret to this one. Government agencies have funneled millions into programs for women and girls and been very explicit about it. They have completely re-written syllabi, teaching and assessment. They have locked men out of teaching. The list just goes on and on.

And you say there has been no plot?

Gee. I just though of a 'newspeak' joke: what do you call a plot with no secret? Government policy.
Posted by dane, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 8:27:13 PM
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I refer you to eyejaws nice post, dane.
Posted by Luciferase, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 11:56:15 PM
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Luciferase, Eyejaw made the point, which I agree with, but due to poor phrasing failed to make, that the entire focus for the past generaion has been on making changes to assist girls, with little regard for the effect on boys.

There has been an institutionalised sexism based on the premise that boys are simply naturally better at school and that no matter what changes are made they will manage to cope. The femocrats who have implemented such policies hail the current situation as a success and our PM has acclaimed the achievement of policies that have seen girls outdoing boys in obtaining higher education qualifications at the rate of about 4:3.

at the same time there has been a push to turn traditional female trades, like nursing, teaching, even childcare into "professions", while traditionally male trades have been progressively devalued into essentially process-work in which competency-based "training" has largely supplanted the acquisition of genuine skills. A carpenter assembles pre-fabricated frames; a plumber doesn't know how to solder or form a pipe-bend and is barely able to make water flow downhill; a fitter is a part-changer who can't do any machining; a boilermaker is a welder, or a welding machine operator. Yes, changes in technology have done these things, but when changes in technology affected the female workforce, we were told they had to have their skills upgraded, so why are males left on the heap?

The trouble with boys' education is a symptom of a wider problem, which is the colonisation of senior bureaucratic roles by women who identify first, last and always as "feminists". Look at all the trouble Tony Abbott experiences for being perceived as insufficiently effusively pro-female, despite the evidence that he is surrounded by women in both his personal and public life. Now consider how little chance there is of any kind of policy that might be seen as being to the advantage of boys coming from a teaching bureaucracy dominated by those like Ms Burrows, or even that such a policy might be given consideration by career-conscious people. It would be career suicide.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 5:34:52 AM
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A further couple of pieces from the quintessential feminist-careerist, Tanja Kovac, who has made her way solely on her ideology.

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/A-limelight-thief-at-the-arse-end-of-feminism/

"They have devoted their lives to women-centred policy jobs, committees and NGO’s"

"The conclusion I came to last night is that Greer is a famous feminist because she is the one fellas in the mainstream press permit us to have. " - the irony here is that this was a piece published in the mainstreamest of press - News Limited. However, David Penberthy, the Editor of that site, is about to marry Gillard Minister Kate Ellis, who is not a member of Ms Kovac's poisonous little Emily's List "cool girls' club".

Janet Albrechtsen, a genuinely high-achieving woman with no need for special "feminist" treatment to make her way, has this to say about the sort of feminism that is practised by Kovac and other careerist feminists

"She wants to win people over with emotion, not reason. She wants “rallies, online happenings and a fundraising event or two ... and while you’re at it put out a goddamn badge or something I can wear! The human rights revolution is just a T-shirt away.” "

While that was in relation to a specific campaign, it goes to the heart of institutionalised feminist thinking. They don't want us to think too hard about consequences or outcomes - just wear the T-shirt and then everybody will know you're on the right side and can cheer you, whatever you say.

Gillard tried this and it failed because she didn't recognise that most women are not feminists in the careerist way that she is. They actually like being "princesses" to a "prince". They like strong men and they like being taken care of by such a man. Sure, they like the idea of being able to work if they feel like it, but they aren't too keen on having to if they don't.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 5:58:47 AM
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The feminist women who have risen to dominate educational bureacracies (Gillard's personal special interest group, for good reason) have little in common with those ordinary women and they have based years of policy on slogans and T-shirts. "Girls can do anything" (but the "boys can do anything campaign was scrapped before it began). "Girls: building the future" (while boys get TAFE stickers).

The sexism that the article addresses is very real and it is very damaging. It will not be changed by the current educational policy-makers and they will use their influence in selecting their successors to ensure that those people are themselves T-shirt wearing sloganeers who will propagate the error.

Unlike past "patriarchal" domination of such positions, the present iteration has a deliberate policy of self-perpetuation. It is not simply reflecting the society, it is trying to create it. It is a disgrace.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 6:03:28 AM
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Oh, I don't know, Anti.

The boys can do anything meme is still running fairly strong in mainstream society.

Take a peek at LEGO, for a child's introduction to societal formulation.

Boy's LEGO is all about doing and building (linking well with established roles in society) usually accompanied by a blokey gruff "HEY!".

http://city.lego.com/en-us/?icmp=COUSFR2City

Or adventurous

http://starwars.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx?icmp=COUSFR3StarWars

(To name but a couple of the myriad available)

The girl's products are something called "friends" where they get to spend time with "friends" in pretty pink settings or where they get to go shopping or some such girlie lark

http://friends.lego.com/en-us/?icmp=COUSFR4Friends

So perhaps things aren't as bad as you think : )
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 10:27:43 AM
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Don't be too sure, Poirot...

"So perhaps things aren't as bad as you think : )"

What are we to make of this young, black, refugee, muslim, Queensland tertiary educated, mechanical engineer, female who obviously doesn't realise she is meant to be a 'welfare for lifer' and not working in a male environment?

https://griffithreview.com/edition-40-women-power/on-the-rigs

Sure, she is only one in a crew of twenty-five. But it could be the thin edge of the wedge...
Posted by WmTrevor, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 10:40:01 AM
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Yes, WmTrevor - thin edge of the wedge, indeed.

Just a little more on the LEGO products.

Check out the difference between the girl aimed "Friends" products and the more masculine flavoured "City" products.

http://friends.lego.com/en-us/products/41008-heartlake-city-pool/
(scroll down for other products)

http://city.lego.com/en-us/products/

Obviously the takeover hasn't reached LEGO yet.
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 5:32:06 PM
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Lego is a commercial product and it pitches its products at the prospective buyers. It is not trying to create any societal changes, just to sell as much stock as possible.

The fact that it uses the models that it does shows that those are the ones that young girls and boys aspire to, and so do their parents. The fact that our social constructionalists have failed to change that despite 50 or so years (nearly 3 generations) of deliberately structured policy designed to do so is a pretty strong argument for the case that they are badly misguided.

I'm not sure what the woman on the drill rig has to do with anything.

In the meantime, we are still training girls to be professionals and boys to be process workers, in the certain knowledge that most of the young women who become such professionals will decide within about 10 years or so of completing uni to take a lot of time away from their career to have children and will expect to be supported by government and their employer to do so. We also know that about 40% of them will not have the support of the father of their child, other than the financial support that is extorted by government under threat. We also know that most of them will never return to full time work having had those children.

We also know that the men who might have supported them will instead be locked into unstable, casualised jobs and that many will become either long-term unemployed or will end up as disability pensioners, often for reasons of mental health that are directly attributable to their life outcomes.

But that's OK, LEGO makes toys that show boy construction workers and girl princesses...
Posted by Antiseptic, Thursday, 2 May 2013 7:00:32 AM
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