Pink Brain, Blue Brain - thinking about gender and education without panic
About a week ago I included a quote from Lise Eliot's Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps - and What We Can Do About It, at the time, I promised more about this book, and well, now is the time. First off, this book was the antidote I needed after reading both of Leonard Sax's books. This is also a book about how and why boys and girls differ, but while Sax uses those differences as an argument for single-sex schools, Eliot uses those differences as an argument to increase the possibilities for all children. I would like to buy this book for everyone who has read Sax's books, and press any educator considering creating a single sex learning environment to read this first.
Eliot's main thesis is that the differences between male and female brains at birth, while real are fairly small. Adults gender children, and children are more prone to doing the things they are good at, and the behavioral differences between boys and girls widen. These behaviours and regular practice of certain skills while ignoring others lead brain development - causing those gaps to widen still. The field of neuroplasticity shows how our brains come to echo our practices, and Eliot argues that many of the differences we see in adult male and female brains are caused not by hormones or gender, but by behavior. She addresses different stages of infant and child development, thoroughly reviews the scientific literature and then makes recommendations for how parents can help children develop in less limited ways. She acknowledges that there are in deed differences between boys and girls, but that the innate differences are probably less than we believe, and are certainly less that Leonard Sax claims. She does at times directly address Sax's research often pointing out how he relies on single studies, unverifiable results, insignificant differences, and outdated research to make his points.
Eliot at times addresses Sax directly and offers numerous studies that refute both the what Sax bases his work on and the recommendations he makes. For Sax, "gender matters" and for Eliot "sex matters", and between the two is a sea of difference. Here's a quick-and-dirty back forth between Sax and Eliot:
Girls are more sensitive as infants than boys - no true.
Girl infants are more socially orientated than boys - only on one study where the researcher was not blind - on the rest not.
Girls have better hearing than boys - true, but not in a way that it effects either in regular life.
Holding boys back from kindergarten helps them - true in kindergarten, but they are in fact disadvantaged by the end of middle school.
More boys are diagnosed as having ADHD than girls - true, but it is not because teachers want to chemically control boys - the reference standards disfavour boys and Eliot recommends having a boys and a girls standard.
Single sex education benefits boys - not true, unless you are offering an elite school that can select it's students, offer only small classes, and has students who have many learning opportunities outside of the classroom, in which case you are measuring class not sex.
One of the few things they agree on is that limiting video games is a good idea.
Oh, she also acknowledges that Canada exists - and that Canadian research is worth looking at , that class matters in educational success in a significant way, and that transpeople exists. Unlike Sax, she notes the difference between sex and gender and gives a clear statement about which she is using where and why. And finally, unlike Sax she does not encourage parents of gender variant children to push their children to behave in "sex appropriate" ways (an approach discredited by every major medical body in North America). In short, I found her sensible, well researched and practical. I learned things reading this book that I think I can use as a parent and as an educator - without any need to emulate the rigid gender roles of the 50s.
Here's some of my hi-lights from the book:
Introduction
Eliot really wants the reader to understand the science she is relying on, and gives a through explanation of the science.
8. Truce Time:
Eliot's main thesis is that the differences between male and female brains at birth, while real are fairly small. Adults gender children, and children are more prone to doing the things they are good at, and the behavioral differences between boys and girls widen. These behaviours and regular practice of certain skills while ignoring others lead brain development - causing those gaps to widen still. The field of neuroplasticity shows how our brains come to echo our practices, and Eliot argues that many of the differences we see in adult male and female brains are caused not by hormones or gender, but by behavior. She addresses different stages of infant and child development, thoroughly reviews the scientific literature and then makes recommendations for how parents can help children develop in less limited ways. She acknowledges that there are in deed differences between boys and girls, but that the innate differences are probably less than we believe, and are certainly less that Leonard Sax claims. She does at times directly address Sax's research often pointing out how he relies on single studies, unverifiable results, insignificant differences, and outdated research to make his points.
Eliot at times addresses Sax directly and offers numerous studies that refute both the what Sax bases his work on and the recommendations he makes. For Sax, "gender matters" and for Eliot "sex matters", and between the two is a sea of difference. Here's a quick-and-dirty back forth between Sax and Eliot:
Girls are more sensitive as infants than boys - no true.
Girl infants are more socially orientated than boys - only on one study where the researcher was not blind - on the rest not.
Girls have better hearing than boys - true, but not in a way that it effects either in regular life.
Holding boys back from kindergarten helps them - true in kindergarten, but they are in fact disadvantaged by the end of middle school.
More boys are diagnosed as having ADHD than girls - true, but it is not because teachers want to chemically control boys - the reference standards disfavour boys and Eliot recommends having a boys and a girls standard.
Single sex education benefits boys - not true, unless you are offering an elite school that can select it's students, offer only small classes, and has students who have many learning opportunities outside of the classroom, in which case you are measuring class not sex.
One of the few things they agree on is that limiting video games is a good idea.
Oh, she also acknowledges that Canada exists - and that Canadian research is worth looking at , that class matters in educational success in a significant way, and that transpeople exists. Unlike Sax, she notes the difference between sex and gender and gives a clear statement about which she is using where and why. And finally, unlike Sax she does not encourage parents of gender variant children to push their children to behave in "sex appropriate" ways (an approach discredited by every major medical body in North America). In short, I found her sensible, well researched and practical. I learned things reading this book that I think I can use as a parent and as an educator - without any need to emulate the rigid gender roles of the 50s.
Here's some of my hi-lights from the book:
Introduction
Eliot really wants the reader to understand the science she is relying on, and gives a through explanation of the science.
- The more we parents hear about hard-wiring and biological programming, the less we bother tempering out pink and blue fantasies, and start attributing every skill or deficit to innate sex differences. (p. 14)
- For twenty-five years, sociologist Lloyd Lueptow has administered the same survey about sex roles to his classes at the University of Akron. In spite of the dramatic changes in women's achievement over this period, college students toad actually perceive greater differences between men and women than students did in the 1970s... (p.15)
- Research on sex difference can be dangerous. As much as researchers emphasize that group differences can never predict an individual child's achievement, such data do build on expectations in parents, teachers, and children themselves. And expectations can be every bit as influential as toys, curricula, and peers in shaping our boys and girls. (p157)
8. Truce Time:
- In spite of all the fears about boys adrift, the truth is that their reading, writing, and math scores are on the rise, their high-school dropout rates are down and more men are going to college (even if their percentage of the total college population has declined).... Everyone's getting better educated; it's just that girls' improvement had been more dramatic.(p.300)
- Or rather, girls have soared as we've begun expecting them to be more like boys. Sports, math, science, and leadership training ave been good for girls. We still have further to go - to boost girls spatial skills, technological fluency, and comfort with competition - if we want to narrow remaining gaps in fields like engineering and computer science and continue chipping away at the glass ceiling. (p.301)
- A hundred years ago, when women made up a mere 20 percent of college students and were rare in most professions, people believed in a fundamental - read "innate"- gap in intelligence and ambition between the sexes. It wasn't until feminists started questioning this assumption and arguing that socialization, more than hormones, was limiting girls' potential that things started to change. Ironically, we are now doing the came thing to boys: writing them off as naturally less able to succeed in school. While parents of girls keep raising their expectations, parents of boys are doing just the opposite. (p.302)
- boys are the new victims of gender stereotyping, even internalizing a "girls are smarter" attitude. Though boys proclaim this in a self-effacing, politically correct way, you can see how it saps their motivation. It's hard to raise the bar if you believe it is already cemented in place. (p.302)
- We need to be aware of gender, but also of the imprecision of stereotypes. Above all, we need to assiduously avoid prejudging any boy or girl. Presuming that girls will be less interested in science or that boys will not enjoy writing virtually defeats the purpose of education. What's the point of teaching children a broad range of skills if you convince yourself that they're hardwired for some tasks but not others? (p.313)