Published: March 8, 1999
by: Michael Gurian, Ph.D.
- Adolescent boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed than adolescent girls.
- Studies show that boys' self-esteem drops as intensely in adolescence as girls' does, but the drop is less likely to be noticed in schools and at home.
- Adolescent males are four times as likely to commit suicide as adolescent females.
- Adolescent males are routinely found to channel other primary feelingshurt, pain, griefinto anger.
- Adolescent boys are 15 times as likely as adolescent females to be victims of violent crime. Adolescent boys now commit violent crime at a higher rate than adult offenders.
- Adolescent boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability than adolescent girls.
- Adolescent boys receive consistently lower grades than adolescent girls. While female students have nearly caught up in math/science scores, adolescent boys are on average 1 and 1/2 years behind female peers in reading/writing.
- Four adolescent males drop out of school for every one adolescent female.
- Adolescent boys are in fewer clubs, student government, and school newspapers than adolescent girls; they make up a minority of valedictorians, salutatorians, and college scholarship winners.
- Millions of adolescent boys experience post-traumatic stress due to family, cultural, and socio-economic situations. A post-traumatic boy is ten times more likely than his female peer to act out in a way that is dangerous to another person.
Source URL:
http://www.connectforkids.org/node/98
http://www.connectforkids.org/node/98