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Boys and Underachievement in the Canadian Context: No Proof for Panic

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The Politics of Gender and Education

Abstract

Over the last fifteen years there has been an increase in scholarly work internationally in the area of boys, masculinities and schooling (Davison, 1996, 2000a, 2000b; Frank, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1997a and b; Epstein et al., 1998; Kenway, 1995, 1998, 2000; Mac an Ghaill, 1994a, 1994b, 1996; Martino, 1994, 1995, 2000, forthcoming). This work, heavily influenced by feminist research on gender and education, has investigated, and often problematised, the complexities of the lives of boys in schools. It has focused on homophobia and heterosexism, bullying, sexual harassment, violence and underachievement. Over the last ten years in the United Kingdom and Australia there has been an outcry in the popular press about a crisis in the education of boys (Epstein et al., 1998). Newspaper headlines have asked questions such as: ‘Are Schools Failing our Boys?’ ‘What about the Boys?’ and ‘Do Boys Need More Male Teachers?’

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Authors
  1. Kevin G. Davison
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  2. Trudy A. Lovell
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  3. Blye W. Frank
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  4. Ann B. Vibert
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, UK

    Suki Ali (Lecturer) (Lecturer)

  2. Birmingham University, UK

    Shereen Benjamin (Lecturer in Difficulty in Learning) (Lecturer in Difficulty in Learning)

  3. Open University, UK

    Melanie Mauthner (Lecturer in Social Policy) (Lecturer in Social Policy)

Copyright information

© 2004 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Davison, K.G., Lovell, T.A., Frank, B.W., Vibert, A.B. (2004). Boys and Underachievement in the Canadian Context: No Proof for Panic. In: Ali, S., Benjamin, S., Mauthner, M. (eds) The Politics of Gender and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230005532_4

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