By Jessica Sheppard (The Guardian UK) Girls think they are cleverer, more successful and harder working than boys from as young as four, a study has found.
Boys come round to this view by the age of seven or eight and assume that girls will outperform them at school and behave better in lessons, research from the University of Kent shows.
The study – Gender Expectations and Stereotype Threat – will be presented to the British Educational Research Association’s conference tomorrow.
The paper argues that teachers have lower expectations of boys than of girls and this belief fulfils itself throughout primary and secondary school.
Girls’ performance at school may be boosted by what they perceive to be their teachers’ belief that they will achieve higher results and be more conscientious than boys, the academics claim. Boys may underachieve because they pick up on teachers’ assumptions that they will obtain lower results than girls and have less drive.
Read the rest Girls think they are cleverer than boys from age four, study finds | Education | The Guardian.
