The War Against Boys

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The War Against Boys Page 28

by Christina Hoff Sommers


  8. Anna Mundow, “The Child Predators,” Irish Times, January 27, 1997, p. 8.

  9. Janet Daley, “Young Men Always Behave Badly,” Daily Telegraph, July 20, 1998.

  10. William Damon, Bringing in a New Era in Character Education (Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), p. vii.

  11. See Michel Marriot, “A Menacing Ritual Is Called Common in New York Pools,” New York Times, July 7, 1993, www.nytimes.com/1993/07/07/nyregion/a-menacing-ritual-is-called-common-in-new-york-pools.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (accessed July 13, 2012); Robert Handley, “4 Are Convicted in Sexual Abuse of Retarded New Jersey Woman,” New York Times, March 17, 1993, www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/glenridge-verdict.html (accessed July 13, 2012); “Scoring with the Spur Posse,” New York Times, March 30, 1993, www.nytimes.com/1993/03/30/opinion/scoring-with-the-spur-posse.html (accessed July 13, 2012).

  12. Quoted in Bernard Lefkowitz, Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), back cover.

  13. Judy Mann, The Difference: Growing Up Female in America (New York: Warner, 1994), p. 246.

  14. Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (New York: Morrow, 1999), p. 47.

  15. Mann, The Difference, p. 243.

  16. Lefkowitz, Our Guys, pp. 3–4.

  17. Ibid., p. 7.

  18. Ibid., p. 9.

  19. Ibid., pp. 93–94.

  20. Ibid., p. 92.

  21. Ibid., p. 73.

  22. Ibid., p. 95.

  23. Jane Gross, “Where ‘Boys Will Be Boys,’ and Adults Are Befuddled,” New York Times, March 29, 1993, www.nytimes.com/1993/03/29/us/where-boys-will-be-boys-and-adults-are-befuddled.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (accessed July 13, 2012).

  24. Joan Didion, “Trouble in Lakewood,” The New Yorker, July 26, 1993, p. 50. See also William Damon, Greater Expectations: Overcoming the Culture of Indulgence in America’s Homes and Schools (New York: Free Press, 1995), pp. 42–45.

  25. Dateline NBC, NBC television broadcast, April 6, 1993.

  26. Gross, “Where ‘Boys Will Be Boys,’ and Adults Are Befuddled.”

  27. WNET Educational Resources Center, Ethical Choices: Individual Voices, Thirteen/WNET (New York, 1997).

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Nancy F. Sizer and Theodore R. Sizer, eds., Moral Education: Five Lectures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).

  31. Ibid., pp. 3–7.

  32. Ibid., p. 5.

  33. Ibid., p. 8–9.

  34. Sidney Simon and Howard Kirschenbaum, eds., Readings in Values Clarification (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1973), p. 18.

  35. See, for example, Lawrence Kohlberg, “The Cognitive-Developmental Approach,” Phi Delta Kappan, June 1975, pp. 670–675.

  36. Lawrence Kohlberg, “Moral Education Reappraised,” The Humanist, November/December 1978, pp. 14–15. Kohlberg, renouncing his earlier position, wrote, “Some years of active involvement with the practice of moral education . . . has led me to realize that my notion . . . was mistaken. . . . The educator must be a socializer, teaching value content and behavior and not [merely] a process-facilitator of development. . . . I no longer hold these negative views of indoctrinative moral education and I believe that the concepts guiding moral education must be partly ‘indoctrinative.’ This is true, by necessity, in a world in which children engage in stealing, cheating and aggression.”

  37. Pat Sebranek, Dave Kemper, and Randall VanderMey, Write Source 2000 Sourcebook: Student Workshops, Activities, and Strategies (Wilmington, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), p. 217.

  38. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, p. 85.

  39. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Chicago: Regnery, 1955), pp. 14, 84.

  40. Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, February 24, 1969.

  41. Ibid., Justice Black, dissenting.

  42. Abigail Thernstrom, “Where Did All the Order Go? School Discipline and the Law,” in Diane Ravitch, ed., Brookings Papers on Education Policy (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 304.

  43. William Damon, Failing Liberty: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society (Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution, 2011), p. 46.

  44. Quoted in ibid., p. 52.

  45. See, for example, Laurence Steinberg in Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

  46. Dave Cullen, Columbine (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2010).

  47. Ibid., p. 523. See also Michael Kimmel, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, who explains that the Littleton shooters were “not deviants at all” but “over-conformists . . . to traditional notions of masculinity.” Congressional Quarterly, op. cit. See also, Susan Faludi, “The Rage of the American Male,” Newsweek, August 16, 1999, p. 31.

  48. Jessie Klein, The Bully Society (New York: New York University Press, 2012), p. 16.

  49. Jessica Portner, “Everybody Wants to Know Why,” Education Week, April 28, 1999, p. 16; see also Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, “Shootings Spur Move to Police Students’ Work,” Education Week, May 26, 1999, p. 14.

  50. Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, “The Aspen Declaration on Character Education,” Josephson Institute of Ethics, 1992, http://charactercounts.org/overview/aspen.html (accessed July 13, 2012). “Character Education Manifesto,” available from the Josephson Institute of Ethics, Marina Del Ray, California, or from Kevin Ryan, director, Boston University Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character.

  51. Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, “How to Get Started with Character Counts!,” Josephson Institute of Ethics, 2012, http://charactercounts.org/getstarted/index.html (accessed July 13, 2012).

  52. Donald Baker, “Bringing Character into the Classroom,” Washington Post, February 4, 1999, Metro, p. 1.

  53. Ibid.

  54. Damon, Failing Liberty, p. 61.

  55. Ibid.

  56. Marvin Berkowitz and Melinda Bier, “What Works in Character Education: A Research-Driven Guide for Educators,” Character Education Partnership, February 2005, http://www.rucharacter.org/file/practitioners_518.pdf (accessed January 26, 2013).

  57. Social and Character Development Research Consortium, Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, 2010).

  58. Damon, Failing Liberty, p. 57.

  59. Sarah Sparks, “Character Education Found to Fall Short in Federal Study,” Education Week, October 21, 2010, www.source.ly/10zH1#.T_oAzvEU4fE (accessed July 13, 2012).

  60. US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, “Positive Action,” What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report, April, 23, 2007, http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/intervention_reports/WWC_Positive_Action_042307.pdf (accessed July 13, 2012).

  61. See B. Flay, A. Acock, S. Vuchinich, and M. Beets, “Progress Report of the Randomized Trial of Positive Action in Hawaii: End of Third Year of Intervention,” available from Positive Action, Inc., 264 4th Avenue South, Twin Falls, ID 83301, 2006; B. Flay and C. G. Allred, “Long-Term Effects of the Positive Action Program,” American Journal of Healthy Behavior 27, no. 1 (May–June 2003), pp. S6–S21. Also, see B. Flay, “Randomized Evaluation of the Positive Action Pre-K Program,” Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth and Positive Action, Inc., January 2012; K. Lewis, N. Bavarian, F. Snyder et al., “Direct and Mediated Effects of a Social-Emotional and Character Development Program on Adolescent Substance Use,” International Journal of Emotional Education 4, no. 1 (April 2012), pp. 56–78; F. J. Snyder, S. Vuchinich, A. Acock, I. J. Washburn, and B. R. Flay, “Improving Elementary School Quality Through the Use of a Social-Emotional and Character Development Program: A Matche
d-Pair, Cluster-Randomized, Control Trail in Hawai’i,” Journal of School Health 82 (2012), pp. 11–20; K.-K. Li, I. Washburn, D. L. DuBois et al., “Effects of the Positive Action Program on Problem Behaviors in Elementary School Students: A Matched-Pair, Randomized Control Trial in Chicago,” Psychology & Health 26, no. 2 (2011), pp. 187–204.

  62. US Department of Education, “Positive Action,” p. 3.

  63. Niloofar Bavarian, Kendra Lewis et al., “Using Social-Emotional and Character Development to Improve Academic Outcomes: A Matched-Pair, Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Low-Income, Urban Schools” (submitted for publication).

  64. William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, vol. 3 (Chicago: Belford-Clark, 1890), p. 439.

  65. Epictetus, The Handbook of Epictetus, tr. Nicholas White (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1983).

  66. Kim Loop, “Lake County, Michigan Sees Firsthand Effects of Positive Action,” Positive Action, April 20, 2011, www.positiveaction.net/about/index.asp?ID1=7&ID2=705&ID3=1408 (accessed July 13, 2012).

  67. Benjamin DeMott, “Morality Plays,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1994, p. 67.

  68. Alfie Kohn, “How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education,” Phi Delta Kappan, February 1997, p. 431.

  69. Ibid., p. 433.

  70. Thomas J. Lasley II, “The Missing Ingredient in Character Education,” Phi Delta Kappan, April 1997, p. 654.

  71. The program was developed by a California-based group called the Jefferson Center for Character Education: www.jeffersoncenter.org/.

  72. Tim Stafford, “Helping Johnny Be Good,” Christianity Today, September 11, 1995, p. 34.

  73. Ibid.

  74. For an excellent practical guide to the moral development of boys, see Michael Gurian, A Fine Young Man (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1998).

  75. Angela Lee Duckworth and Martin Seligman, “Self-Discipline Gives Girls the Edge: Gender in Self-Discipline, Grades, and Achievement Test Scores,” Journal of Education Psychology 98 (2006), pp. 186–208.

  9. War and Peace

  1. Peggy Orenstein, School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 248.

  2. The Boys Initiative, www.theboysinitiative.org/ (accessed September 21, 2012).

  3. Approximately eight hundred Chicago Public Schools students took part in Becoming a Man—Sports Edition from 2009 to 2011. Researchers at the University of Chicago Crime Lab tracked students and reported a “miraculous change in violent crime arrest rates” (44 percent decrease) and a significant improvement in class attendance among students who had participated in the program. See Frank Main, “Study: Chicago Sports Program Cut Violent Crime, Boosted School Attendance,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 13, 2012, www.suntimes.com/news/metro/13744284-418/study-chicago-sports-program-cut-violent-crime-boosted-school-attendance.html (accessed July 19, 2012).

  4. Tom Wolfe, “The Great Relearning,” Orange County Register, January 24, 1988, p. J01.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Patricia Stevens, ed., Between Mothers and Sons: Women Writers Talk About Having Sons and Raising Men (New York: Scribner, 1999).

  7. Deborah Galyan, “Watching Star Trek with Dylan,” in Between Mothers and Sons, ed. Stevens, p. 50.

  8. Ibid., pp. 50–51.

  9. Ibid., pp. 51–52.

  10. Janet Burroway, “Soldier Son,” in Between Mothers and Sons, ed. Stevens, p. 37.

  11. Ibid., p. 40.

  12. Mary Gordon, “Mother and Son,” in Between Mothers and Sons, ed. Stevens, p. 163.

  13. Ibid., p. 164.

  14. See Hannah Rosin, “The End of Men,” The Atlantic, July/August 2010, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/ (accessed July 19, 2012). See also Dan Abrams, Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else (New York: Abrams Image, 2011).

  Index

  Page numbers in italics refer to figures.

  Abrams, Dan, 203

  Adelphi University, 59, 60

  adolescent development, 95–96, 97, 115, 121, 123, 131–32, 137, 181

  alleged “girl crisis” in, 12, 76, 91–98, 99–100, 101, 103, 106, 112, 114, 115, 126, 128, 129, 136, 138–39, 147, 199, 204

  “boys-in-crisis” theory on, 127–32, 133–37, 188–89, 204

  “ADVANCE” campaign, 70–71

  Advanced Placement (AP) program, 13, 24, 35, 38, 161

  African Americans, 19, 21, 23–24, 25, 49, 82, 84, 193

  gender gap in education of, 24

  aggression, 3, 55, 70, 86, 118, 119, 121, 144, 180, 221n, 238n

  paternal absence and, 120, 121

  rough-and-tumble play vs., 41–42

  sex differences in, 62, 67, 221n

  sports and, 57

  Ali, Russlynn, 10

  Allred, Carol Gerber, 192, 193–94

  Allred, Gloria, 64–65, 67, 80, 81, 87

  Alonzo, Richard, 40

  Ambrose, Stephen, 124–25

  American Association of University Women (AAUW), 2, 9, 11, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 34, 35, 60, 76, 77, 98, 104, 112, 126, 162, 166, 210n, 214n

  How Schools Shortchange Girls report of, 18, 101–3, 210n

  self-esteem studies commissioned by, 99–103, 106

  Where the Girls Are report of, 20–24

  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 90, 156, 162, 171

  single-sex schooling opposed by, 4–5, 82, 83, 84, 87–88

  Women’s Rights Projects of, 83

  American Council for CoEducational Schooling (ACCES), 83–84, 85–86, 88, 90

  American Educational Research Association (AERA), 102, 210n

  American Enterprise Institute, 17, 37

  American Jurist, 59

  American Psychiatric Association (APA), 131, 173

  American Psychological Association (APA), 48–49, 51

  antiharassment programs, 55–56, 203

  zero-tolerance policies and, 60–62

  Archer, Chris, 176, 197

  Are Boys Making the Grade? (Rennie Center report), 19

  Aristotle, 182, 187, 190, 194, 196

  Asian Americans, 24

  Aspen Declaration on Character Education, 190

  Asperger’s syndrome, 167

  athletic programs, 57, 165, 166

  Atlanta, Ga., 43, 44

  Atlantic, 19

  attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 18, 119, 211n

  Australia, 8, 34, 157, 166, 170, 201

  “boy-friendly” educational initiatives passed in, 2, 150–51, 155–56, 158, 159, 170–71

  autism, 75, 167

  Aviation High School, 7–11, 27, 33, 38, 159, 161, 162, 164, 165, 171

  Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy, 83

  Barbie interactive games, 141

  Barnett, Rosalind Chait, 22

  Baron-Cohen, Simon, 75, 167

  Barwell, Gavin, 150–51

  Bauerlein, Mark, 156–57

  Beck Depression Inventory, 129

  Becoming a Man: Sports Edition, 48, 200, 240n

  Behind the Pay Gap (AAUW report), 27

  Bennett, William J., 49, 191

  Berkowitz, Marvin, 192

  Bernstein, Elizabeth, 93, 94

  Bertrand, Marianne, 47–48

  Bertsch, Tatiana, 109–10

  Best Practice (teacher-training book), 158–59

  Between Mothers and Sons (Stevenson), 201–3

  Bier, Mindy, 192

  Bigler, Rebecca, 84

  Black, Hugo, 185, 186

  Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical school, 160–61, 162–63, 164, 165, 171

  Blankenhorn, David, 120–21

  Bloomberg, Michael, 169

  Blue School, Pink School (Gotbaum), 10

  Boston Globe, 114

  Bowen, Elizabeth, 109

  boys:

  academic disengagement of, 16, 18, 34, 35, 41, 1
05, 150, 154, 159, 160, 197

  academic gap and underachievement of, see gender gap; male underachievement

  ADHD diagnoses in, 18, 119, 211n

  adolescent “psychological crisis” proclaimed in, 127–32, 133–37, 188–89, 204

  aggressive tendencies in, 3, 41–42, 55, 62, 67, 70, 86, 119, 120, 144, 180, 221n

  arrest and incarceration rates of, 25, 48, 136, 173

  “call-out” gap and, 102, 210n, 227n

  competitiveness in, 3, 39, 55, 62, 70, 123

  conduct disorders in, 63, 173, 183–84, 197

  criminal behavior of, see criminal behavior; juvenile delinquency

  discipline and structure as beneficial to, 3, 63, 148–49, 152, 153, 154, 155, 171, 172, 173–74, 180, 193, 194–95, 198

  drop-out rates of, 14, 160, 161

  early childhood disorders of, 119

  emotional disengagement in, 116, 117–20, 121, 122–23, 126, 139–43, 144, 145

  feminist mothers as gaining insights into nature of, 201–3

  in forced “separation” from nurturing mothers, 117, 118, 119–20, 121–22, 123, 130–31, 135, 136, 175

  higher test scores of, 15–16, 17–18, 35–36

  inattentiveness in, 36–37, 102, 228n

  masculine acculturation viewed

  as psychologically harmful to, 96, 115–26, 128, 130, 131, 139

  mental illness and psychological disorders in, 63, 135, 173, 178, 179, 184–85, 188, 190, 197, 203

  moral education of, see morality, moral reasoning

  obesity rates in, 44, 45

  organizational skills lacking in, 36, 39, 197

  paternal presence needed by, 120–21, 122

  pathologizing of normal behavior in, 3, 39–40, 43, 55, 63, 64, 70, 73, 127–28, 130, 131–32, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 142, 146, 203, 204, 233n

  play preferences of, 40, 41–43, 44, 62, 64, 67, 70, 89–90, 121, 201–2

  preteen, 94–95

  pro-girl movement and, 77, 92, 96, 114, 126, 157, 165, 170, 171, 197, 199, 231n–32n

  progressive educational approaches and, 2, 41, 149, 150, 157, 158–59, 184–85, 200–201

  psychological dysfunction broadly attributed to, 50, 127–28, 130–36, 137, 139, 142, 146, 157, 188–89, 203

  “relational crisis” of, 96, 114, 115, 118–20, 121–23

 

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