Learning Biology for Sustainable Development Using Hands-On Strategy: Can Gender Achievement Gap Reduce?

Despite the importance of \biology for sustainable development, students’ performance in the subject has been inconsistent. Several interventions have been used to improve students’ learning of Biology but the inconsistency in performance persists. Thus, this study investigated the use of hands-on learning in enhancing students’ academic achievement. The research adopted a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental research design with 2x2 factorial. The study also examined the moderating effect of gender on academic achievement. Fifty-eight students offering Biology in the intact classes of two randomly selected schools participated in the study. The data was collected using a 25-item Biology Achievement Test for Students (BATS) subjected to face and content validities, and reliability test. The test-retest reliability method yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.68. The data analyses revealed a significant difference in the effect of strategy on the academic achievement of students in Biology (F (1,53) =8.595), p=0.05, but in favour of the conventional method of teaching. Further findings showed no significant difference in the effect of gender on the academic achievement of students (F (1,53) = 0.980), p>0.05. The researchers noted that hand-on activities are important for Biology learning and recommended that school authorities should allocate adequate time for that purpose.

Passion in a Climate of Austerity: Young Men’s Perceptions of Education and Career Success in a Polarized Economy

This article explores young men’s educational experiences and career trajectories in the context of restrained public expenditure, neoliberal educational policies, tightening job opportunities, and growing concern of the gender achievement gap. Based on focus group research among young postsecondary-educated students in Ontario, Canada, this article reveals how young men, in particular, emphasize the importance of passion and purpose in creating successful selves and in navigating higher education. The author examines research findings through a transdisciplinary lens that juxtaposes psychological research on passion, management perspectives on success, economic studies on gender and the labor market, and critical perspectives of gendered subjectivities within the context of a declining manufacturing sector and a rising service-led knowledge economy to explore and analyze how young men construct their learner subjectivities. As such, these narratives should be read as the product of risk-taking, heroic, and self-confident self-entrepreneurship that necessarily involves self-regulation, introspection, diligence, and responsibility.

Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts

We estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English language arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 U.S. school districts using state accountability data from third- through eighth-grade students in the 2008–2009 through 2015–2016 school years. We find that the average U.S. school district has no gender achievement gap in math, but there is a gap of roughly 0.23 standard deviations in ELA that favors girls. Both math and ELA gaps vary among school districts; some districts have more male-favoring gaps and some more female-favoring gaps. Math gaps tend to favor males more in socioeconomically advantaged school districts and in districts with larger gender disparities in adult income, education, and occupations; however, we do not find strong associations in ELA.

A Space for Boys and Books: Guys Read Book Clubs

The well-documented gender achievement gap continues to receive popular as well as scholarly attention. Fueling this attention are international and national test scores that continue to illustrate that boys, regardless of age, income, race, or ethnicity, trail girls in reading assessments.While we acknowledge that there is a gender gap in reading achievement between males and females, we remain unconvinced that gender is the only factor; gender is a social and cultural construction, and these considerations must be included in understanding this phenomenon. We were extended a unique opportunity to experience and evaluate a literacy initiative that was created in response to the perceived “crisis” in boys’ literacy—Guys Read book clubs. This article offers an inside glimpse into the out-of-school world of boys and books, which can inform in-school reading practices for both boys and girls.