in literary achievement
Hello and welcome to an informative site all about the gender gap in literary achievement. The research and its issue may be complicated, but my purpose is simple:
create a resource for early and preservice teachers explaining the gender gap in literary achievement, documenting its significance and history, acknowledging the current responses and their flaws, and suggesting alternate responses that better prepare boys for success in their language arts classrooms.
To read further about the background of the research of this project, see here.
I hope this resource reaches a wide range of those who interact with and influence young boys on a daily basis. This might include parents, babysitters, family friends, or daycare workers. However, as a future teacher myself, I hope that it specifically reaches early & preservice teachers who are still molding their teaching philosophies and working to make their classrooms the safest they can be.
In order to best navigate this website, it is suggested that you explore the pages as they are ordered from left to right on the menu bar above.
The about pages simply explain the details that are not essential to understanding the rest of the website. Context is an important place to start, especially for those who have a limited knowledge about the gender gap or gender studies. The current responses are those seen in America that have strengths, but are, in general, not successfully closing the gap as they may have hoped. In reaction to the current responses, I have compiled resource pages on proposed responses that may better assist teachers in understanding the gender gap and in attempting to close it within their own classrooms. The hope is that this website is accessible enough to pick up and leave at convenient times, to best accommodate busy schedules and other priorities, while still informing and educating those who use it.
While I have covered my objective throughout this website, not everything can be addressed. There is an extensive amount of research on the issue of the gender gap and as such, not all of it could be covered within the frame of this website. The research given here comes from specifically a social construction viewpoint.
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Additionally, within gender studies academia, it is widely accepted to be a truth that gender is not a binary, but a spectrum. Unfortunately, this is not as widely accepted within education academia and as thus, the gender gap here is discussed within these terms. This website is not intended to be exclusionary to any trans, nonbinary, or any otherwise identifying students, but is simply working within the current parameters of the education field.