INDEPTH: GENDER GAP
What is Literacy?
CBC News Online | November 25, 2003
What we're beginning to see now is what we saw with the girls: the birth of all kinds of different strategies to get boys back to books. Educator and English professor David Booth of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education suggests: don't be a snob about literature.
Boys are not being asked to read, Booth says.
"That's a big problem. There is such a variety of books in a library, for example, and boys who read easily and read well would find great resources here, lots of fun here for them. But for lots of boys this [a library] isn't where they live. That's a big problem.
"For one thing [books are] fat," Booth says. "Kids with limited reading problems like thin books, that's the first thing they look for."
Many children's books require some background, Booth says. Many are British, many require knowledge of past reading, past times. The words are difficult. "These are books that libraries love, that good readers love. And people like me love. But we need to have a wide range for boys."
Schools are becoming very aware now of things like non-fiction and are moving into new realms, including series books and magazines.
"The problem with the term is that literacy means reading and writing," Booth say. "We talk about "literature," that's really the books we care about in our culture. So a lot of the struggle is whether we want the kids to have those books or make them literate. And sometimes the two don't mesh."
"Love that Dog is a wonderful book, the chapters are very short… So we can find great books for kids that still appeal. If we select wisely.
"We hope that once kids have found that books are useful, mean something to them, then we can move to this greater range here, but if we don't start where they are I am very nervous that they won't want to or feel good about deeper books, stronger books."
Booth's advice to parents and teachers: get boys hooked first on something they'll read easily.
But any book can seem old-style in the world boys inhabit now.
What do boys like to do outside of school? Video games.
When those Grade 7 boys from Hamilton are at a sleepover, they indulge their real passion.
Unlike their parents, boys inhabit a digital world. Most of them spend more than three hours a week on computer games and another 15 hours a week watching television.
Many say that's a real barrier to boys' literacy.
What if the obvious obsession with computer games can be transformed into a passion for stories?
Maybe it can.
Heather Blair is a kind of literacy archeologist, based in Edmonton. She is an education professor at the University of Alberta. With an associate, Blair studied what boys do read rather than how they don't.
Somewhere along the way she had one of those moments – an aha moment – and it completely changed her view of boys' literacy.
"We found that boys have taken up all kinds of very interesting literacy practices," Blair says. "They're quite well-versed in a lot of things in the digital world.
"This is a different kind of reading that you do online: it links screens, the way you move. Boys are so sophisticated, the way they manipulate their way through these games. It's not like reading a narrative novel.
"Literacy is on shifting sands," Blair says. "It's a moving target. Our definition of what literacy is is a moving target. Our definitition has changed radically."
Some parents are deathly afraid of their kids spending all their time on the computer or playing digital games. Should that be a concern?
"There needs to be a balance," Blair says. "I just don't think we should be dismissing what they're doing, doing a lot of things that are very capable literate behaviours."
Blair is so intrigued she's now refining her research into boys and their games from Yugio cards to computers. She suggests there may be a big cultural lag in how we see literacy.
"If the real question is about learning, as opposed to getting a post-secondary degree, these boys are pretty adept at learning. In the long-run, this learning is going to hold them in good stead," Blair says.
Boys' obvious digital skills could turn the whole gender gap on its head.
"I think if we have a closer look at what's going on, we needn't be worried about the boys," Blair says. "I would be [worried] in terms of these new literacies and digital literacy. What about the girls? If anyone's falling behind, I believe it's the girls."
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According to Canadian testing on literacy (SAIP), between 1994 and 2002, girls have maintained a significant advantage over boys in reading and writing.
In 1998, at age 13 girls scored on average 15 per cent higher than boys on reading; at age 16 it was 21 per cent higher.
In 2002, at age 16 girls held a 16.5 per cent advantage over boys for writing.
These are consistent with findings from OECD studies on reading.
On average in developed countries, the gender gap is around 15 per cent.
In Canada in 1993, Canadian tests showed girls were underperforming boys by about 9 per cent in math problem solving.
So the gender gap in reading is greater than the gap for math problem solving ever was.
From Dr. Paul Cappon, director general of the Canadian Council of Ministers:
"In summary, the gap which existed one time in mathematics is closed. There is no gap in science. The gap favouring girls in reading is still wide and the gap in writing appears to be widening."
From the OECD report Education at a Glance, 2003:
"Already at the 4th grade level, females tend to outperform males in reading literacy, on average, and at age 15 the gender gap in reading tends to be large."
University demographics:
In Canada a decade ago, there were about an equal number of males and females.
Today, 44 per cent of university students are men and only 40 per cent of graduates are men. That means of university graduates, 60 per cent are women.
This year, 2003, more women then men applied to Canadian medical schools.
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