The gendered brain : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

Education has become an important issue in political and social debates. Federal policies and school and teacher accountability has changed how America looks at curriculum, pedagogy, and standardized testing. President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act has set the expectation that every child has the same opportunity to succeed and perform in school despite differences like race, gender, and socioeconomic class. Although striving for every child to succeed is a noble goal, the current structure of this program often causes individual needs to be buried under testing preparation. All students may have the ability to succeed, but differences among children can affect the ways they learn. Gender is one difference that has caused gaps in student performance. Schools are failing students by not looking at why boys and girls struggle in different subject areas. Researchers have purposed understanding biological differences between boys and girls' brain development. Once there is an understanding of how brains function and develop differently between genders, observable classroom behaviors are easier to explain. Schools and classrooms can also be restructured to account for biological differences in order to eliminate gender gaps and give every student the opportunity to succeed.