| abstract
| - In the nearly four decades since Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act barred sex discrimination in education, educators and policymakers have encouraged more girls to study and enter traditionally “male” careers, from science and technology to architecture and law. With male-dominated fields like construction now stagnant, however, experts argue that the situation may be reversed: American schools don’t do enough[1] to encourage boys to explore careers in traditionally female-dominated fields, such as health care and education. Experts at a forum hosted in May 2011 by the Washington-based Boys Initiative called for the creation of a White House Council on Boys to Men, similar to the existing White House Council on Women and Girls, to organize policies and support. “The gift of the women’s movement is that we’ve evolved [into] the era of the multi-optioned daughter,” said Warren T. Farrell, the chairman of the Commission to Create a White House Council on Boys to Men and a former member of the board of directors for the National Organization for Women in New York City. “The fact that we’ve had no parallel to the women’s movement means we’ve retained the era of the single-option son.” According to reports[2] released at the forum, by secondary school, 54.7 percent of girls receive “mostly A’s” on their report cards, compared to 40 percent of boys. Boys’ overall academic enrollment lags behind that of girls throughout high school and drops precipitously in college. Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar who studies male economic and academic achievement at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, based in Washington, found[3] that as of 2006, men earned a smaller share of the bachelor’s degrees awarded nationwide than women, both overall and in each racial group. Some racial groups saw a wider gap than others—Asian male students earned 44.7 percent of the degrees, white men 43.5 percent, and black men barely more than one in three, on average, compared to women. Overall, the trend has continued steadily down for male college students in all groups since 1977, Mr. Mortenson found. Part of this is the natural result, post-Title IX, of girls being encouraged to attend college for more than a “Mrs. Degree,” yet Mr. Mortenson argued that boys have not achieved equilibrium in other degree areas like elementary education, where women still are over represented. “My perception over the last 40 years is we’ve provided a lot of support and encouragement for girls to try and take on new things,” he said, “but I’ve also seen no special effort to encourage boys to take on different subjects.” “I’ve tried to say to boys, ‘If you want a good job, think about becoming a nurse’ ... but nobody ever introduces boys to entering these traditionally female occupations, and someone needs to do that,” Mr. Mortenson said. The nonprofit Boy Scouts of America agrees. Willie Iles, the Boy Scouts’ national director for government and community relations, said that the group plans by 2014 to overhaul the merit badges scouts must earn, to cover a broader range of “life skills.” [4]Visit this blog.As part of the process, this September, 2011, the Boy Scouts will conduct a nationwide career survey of students in 8th through 11th grades to develop a list of the 30 most popular careers. “We think that will reposition some of these nontraditional careers for children, particularly in the health care industry.”
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