The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior

http://www.jstor.org/stable/43189418
An article written by Marianne Bertrand and Jessica Pan which focuses on the factors at home and in
schools that explain the gap in disruptive behavior between boys and girls. The article finds the
largest determinant of noncognitive gaps result from the home environment, particularly for boys
who are disproportionately affected by broken homes.

Council on Women and Girls

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/eop/cwg
The archived website from the White House in 2009 that gave information on the newly created
Council on Women and Girls, including quotes by President Obama and a description of goals and
procedures.

Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement

http://www.nber.org/papers/w19331
An NBER working paper by Nicole Fortin, Philip Oreopoulos and Shelley Phipps. The paper examines
data that shows an increase in girls high school performance at the high end of the grading spectrum,
associated with post-secondary expectations. The larger share of low end of the scale students are
boys, where behavior accounts as the prime driver of underperformance.

The Feminine Mystique

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/the-feminine-mystique/
A book by Betty Freidan which ignited the modern feminist movement in 1963. The book was an
expose of the unfulfilled lives many educated women were leading as housewives in the early 1960’s
and their collective secret longing for a more satisfying life.

In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674970960&content=reviews
A social study of young women by Harvard sociologist Carol Gilligan that argued young adolescent
girls were being negatively impacted as the pressures of conforming in society conflicted with the
feminine traits.

The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.20.4.133
An article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives by Claudia Goldin, Lawrence Katz and Ilyana
Kuziemko that looks to explain the closure of the college enrollment gap between men and women
during the 1970’s. The paper concludes that increased focus in the sciences, higher job expectations
and changes in marriage age, all contributed to eliminate the gap.

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Gender and Educational Achievement
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131881.2014.898908
This editorial describes a study done in Switzerland and Germany that looks for the root causes of
differences in achievement in the classroom between boys and girls, including perceptions in the
classroom, teacher perceptions and cultural imagery.

Gender Equality and Higher Education

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083428
A study by Jerry Jacobs that examines the inequities facing women in education in the mid 1990’s.
The study finds that the main hurdle facing women is post-collegiate outcomes. Meaning that women
as a gender are paid less than men for the same level of education.

The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls: Social Science in the Service of Deception
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228586458_The_Myth_That_Schools_Shortchange_Girls_
Social_Science_in_the_Service_of_Deception
This article refutes the popular findings of the 1992 paper "How Schools Shortchange Girls" by
critically examining research and government statistics that show at best no advantage to a distinct
disadvantage for boys. The report speculates that there was more of a political, than scientific basis
for the arguments made in the paper.

Why Men are the New College Minority

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-
minority/536103/
This is an article written for the Atlantic by John Marcus which chronicles the reason for lower
percentage of boys than girls who seek higher education, both due to time in the classroom and the
economics of higher education.

Early Gender Differences in Self-Regulation and Academic Achievement

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=ad1025a4-7cc4-42f0-a478-
e34dd865636c%40sessionmgr102
Article describes a study done on kindergarten students concerning their ability to self-regulate and
suggests that differences were small amongst genders in general, except for a significant group of
boys. The article further links this ability to self-regulate to achievement later in life and concludes by
asking whether strategies to increase the ability to self-regulate at an early age would help
performance later.

How the Great Society “destroyed the American family”

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/how-the-great-society-destroyed-the-
american-family
1992 article by Daniel Patrick Moynihan reflecting on the “crisis” he predicted would ensue from the
breakdown of the inner-city family and the Great Society’s role in those changes to the African
American family. The article calls for action on the part of government to treat the changing family
unit as a social issue.

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Table 303.70 Total undergraduate fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by
attendance status, sex of student, and control and level of institution: Selected years, 1970 through
2027
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_303.70.asp?current=yes#
NCES data table that gives statistics breaking down college enrollment by gender and race for 2016.

Percentage distribution of associate's degrees and bachelor's degrees awarded by degree-granting

postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and sex: Academic year 2013–14
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72
NCES chart of post-secondary degrees awarded broken down by gender and race

Closing the Achievement Gap: Obstacles and Strategies

https://www.njsba.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chapter-2-21st-Century-Obstacles.pdf
A study by teachers in NJ that recommends various actions to close the achievement gap amongst
gender and minorities including a focus on poverty, early education, the home environment, the
quality of teachers, school environment and disciplinary practices.

Women Still Paid Less Than Men: Oregon’s Gender Pay Gap
https://www.ocpp.org/2016/04/11/fs20160411-oregon-gender-pay-gap-women/
Chart examining the pay differential in Oregon of women versus men dependent upon various
degrees earned.

Regulating Opportunity: Title IX and the Birth of Gender-Conscious Higher Education Policy
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278322804_Regulating_Opportunity_Title_IX_and_the_Bi
rth_of_Gender-Conscious_Higher_Education_Policy
An article that chronicles the evolutionary origin of the focus on sex discrimination during the college
admissions process and the subsequent impact Title IX had on the end of discriminatory policies
towards women at the university level.

Reasons for Attending College: The Student Point of View

https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.shu.edu/docview/217773668?accountid=13793
An article by Jennifer Schultz and Jeanne Higbee that looks at preliminary results of a research study
trying to determine the main drivers of the decision to attend college from the student point of view.
The paper describes an analysis looking at both monetary and non-monetary drivers for students,
broken out by gender, of the reasons to attend secondary school.

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How to Make Schools Better for Boys
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/how-to-make-school-better-for-
boys/279635/
A follow up article by Christina Hoff Sommers written 13 years after her 2000 book on the War
Against Boys. Sommers gives an update on the still difficult situation for boys as well as some
suggestions as to how to improve the outcome for boys.

The War Against Boys

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/the-war-against-boys/304659/
This is an article written for the Atlantic by Christina Hoff Summers that reflects many of the ideas in
her book about boys being less successful academically than girls. The article speaks to the origins of
the drive to focus resources on improving results for girls even when statistically it was boys who
were in ever increasing need of having resources deployed to counter academic underperformance.

Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-19763-004
This is a statistical study that analyzes preferences amongst gender when looking at occupational
choices. It is a heavy statistical approach to determine why some occupations are weighted towards
males or females.

Incarceration in the U.S. costs more than $1 trillion a year, Washington University study claims
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/incarceration-in-the-u-s-costs-more-than-
trillion-a/article_070eecea-42c1-5258-a508-062079e9b333.html
A newspaper article in the St. Louis Dispatch that quotes extensively from a Washington University
report looking at the societal costs to the nearly 2 mm people currently incarcerated in the US. The
article is one sided and the study itself was prepared by an advocacy group for prison reform, so there
is certainly bias.

Historical Living Arrangements of Children

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/children.html
A US Census Bureau chart that looks at the makeup of single mother family from the 1960’s to today.
It looks at the breakdown of divorced, widowed, separated or never married mothers.

The Negro Family: The Case for National Action

https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm
The 1965 Department of Labor paper which called for action to address the rising tide of single family
households in the African American community. The paper argued that the societal costs warranted
making the goal of a stable two family household a social goal.

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The AAUW Report: How Schools Shortchange Girls, An Executive Summary
https://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/how-schools-shortchange-girls-executive-summary.pdf
A research report commissioned by the American Association of University Women and released by
Wellesley College that determined how schools systemically discriminated against girls in how they
were taught, what they were taught and what they were not taught.

College Major Choice and the Gender Gap

http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/48/3/545.abstract
A paper by Basit Zafar for the Journal of Human Resources that studies how girls and boys chose
college majors. The paper examines why there is a gender gap in some majors, concluding it is mainly
due to preference, rather than lack of confidence or worries about discriminatory practices in the
post graduate workplace.