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Are Boys and Girls Wired to Learn Differently?

Do boys and girls naturally differ when it comes to learning? Find out what the latest research tells us.
     

    John Gray's book Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars is a best-seller for good reason. It often seems that males experience - and react to - life quite differently than females do.

    Gender differences become apparent at an early age and can be seen in the different ways girls and boys play and learn. In a first-grade classroom, it's not unusual to find the girls working quietly at their desks or cooperatively in small groups as the boys toss paper wads through the air, make silly faces at each other across the room, or seem bored, distracted and restless when seated. While many girls politely raise their hands to answer the teacher's questions, many boys blurt out their answers. Out on the playground girls play an orderly game of jump rope, reciting rhyming songs, while boys bounce balls, race around with no apparent purpose, while teasing girls and tackling other boys.

    It may help to think about gender differences as being driven by both internal forces (biology and anatomy) and external forces (such as socialization and stereotypes). Here we'll focus on some of the internal forces by highlighting research that compares male and female biology, neurology and behavior.

    Other Internal Forces at Work

    Before we delve into gender differences, it's important to note that gender is only one of several inborn factors contributing to a person's unique makeup. Other internal forces that shape who we are and how we behave include:

    • temperament (e.g., shyness, energy level)
    • intelligence
    • natural abilities (e.g., creativity) and disabilities (e.g., dyslexia, AD/HD)

    With that caveat in mind, let's review what researchers have discovered about gender-based learning differences.

    Brain Science: "Looking Under the Hood"

    Over the past decade or so, researchers have attempted to determine what, if any, natural differences exist between male and female brains when it comes to learning. Research in neuroscience has found gender variation in human brain anatomy, chemical processes and function. These variations occur throughout the brain and influence language, memory, emotion, vision, hearing and navigation - all elements in human learning.

    Researchers now know that the size of almost every lobe of the human brain is different in males and females. While researchers still don't fully understand how this relates to cognitive ability, they can make some good guesses.

    For example, imaging studies consistently show that the region of the brain called the hippocampus, which is crucial to memory storage and spatial mapping of the physical world, is larger in women than in men. This might explain why, for example, men and women navigate differently. (Yes, that includes why "men don't stop and ask for directions!") Research suggests that men tend to navigate by estimating distance in space and orientation, while women use monitoring landmarks. Having a larger hippocampus may explain why girls generally have an easier time remembering what they learn.

    In girls, the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres (or halves) of the brain, is generally larger than in boys. This enables more "cross talk" between the hemispheres of the brain. Boys' brains, on the other hand, are structured to compartmentalize learning. As a result, girls are usually better than boys at multitasking and can make quick transitions between lessons and tasks (Havers, 1995). On the other hand, a boy's ability to compartmentalize learning might result in better clarity and focus in certain situations.

    Studies have shown that girls tend to use the areas of the brain devoted to verbal and emotional functioning, while boys generally use the areas of the brain geared toward spatial and mechanical tasks. (Moir and Jessel, 1989; Rich, 2000).

    The male brain needs to recharge and reorient by entering what brain scientists call a rest state. Boys may naturally drift off or "space out" during a lesson. However, they are able to stay engaged in visual or hands-on learning that involves symbols, objects, diagrams and pictures but zone out when too many words are used (Gurian, 2001).

     
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    Comments from GreatSchools.net readers

    10/24/2008:
    "I have travelled all over the world and seen the segregation of boys and girls in the educational systems. What's amazing is that the poor countries use this technique while the richer more educated countries have co-ed classrooms and are more successful. So, argue all you want; but the fact is that boys and girls learn from each at different age groups. It is amazing that America fought so hard for racial de-segregation but now want to segregate the sexes in school. Truth be told; the low income children in our country and in our neighborhoods are the weak link not the learning abilities of boys and girls at different age groups. I know this because I grew up poor and struggled my whole life to escape the trenches that so many poor and un-educated people fall into. I got where I'm at today with the help of a few dedicated teachers and the knowledge that I learned from both genders! "
    10/23/2008:
    "I have a question? At what age do you start talking to your kids about sex and is there such a thing as too young? "
    10/21/2008:
    "You can make all the distinctions you want, but the key is whether it can it be SCIENTIFICALLY shown that separate affects learning in a significant way -- beneficial to both groups. (lets leave aside the separate but equal bad history) Further, is it worth the added investment of separate teaching substrates/ methods. And, of course, we need to know the unspoken, are same sex teachers 'better', Where's that variable in this equation? The glaring lack of scientific scrutany and examination is alarming. Example - Boys with shorter legs can run faster than girls with longer legs. If you apply the logic of the separatists a) you would have separate track training for both, and b) be led to believe girls were or could be faster than boys. What is not cited are several facts that go against the boy vs girl arguments. Initially they did not allow women to enter Olympic races longer than 100 Meters because of psyiological differences! DeJa Vue? A statement that girls' corpus c! ollosum (CC) is thicker than boys' is misleading. What would be important is - does the boys' CC carry as much or more neural traffic? Maybe, testosterone increases neural traffic bandwidth and velocity, and thusly, boys' CC are actually more robust than girls? Of course, that would mean the authors got everything goofy footed. Here's another historical fact. Girls math graduates have over taken boy math graduates in college, percent wise. A while ago these numbers were reversed. This is inconsistent to the B/G logic, because its a reversal happening without a macro educational change. And, dispite all of that, male vs female distributions on some high end educational targets e.g., pHd's, Nobel prizes, chess champions (or scores), composers are skewed male. One could argue, that it serves the greater societal good to make sure, Girls are not separated from boys so that they can 'compete' in a manner of speaking. If you are going to be good, you want to be challenged a bit,! and not isolated from the top achievers. "
    10/6/2008:
    "This article appears 'deficient' in real science in both its observations and conclusions. Anatomical differences do not necessarily denote functional differences; i.e., 'Having a larger hippocampus may explain why girls generally have an easier time remembering what they learn.'. Do they: 1.have a larger hippocampus? 2. have an easier time remembering what they learn? 3. Does a larger hippocampus mean that memory, retrieval, or both are better? What I do believe is that girls and boys do learn differently. I also think that statistics show that standardized test scores in math drop relative to girls vs boys at around 5th or 6th grade. Apparently, this drop does not occur when girls attend a same gender (all girl)school. There is not a difference in boys scores depending on whether they are in a same sex (all boy) school or not. In my opinion, Ms. Stanberry's statement that, 'Studies have shown that girls tend to use the areas of the brain devoted to verbal and emotional functioning, while boys generally use the areas of the brain geared toward spatial and mechanical tasks. (Moir and Jessel, 1989; Rich, 2000). only promotes the stereotype thst lead to few women entering the physical sciences (physics, engineering, etc.) Maybe expectations are lower for girls than boys in spatial and mechanical tasks which might help to explain why boys do better than girls in math only in dual gender schools. Using 'science' to explain why this might occur, as Ms. Stanberry is attemoting, only promotes these lower expectations. Thank you for allowing me to comment on this very important topic."
    10/2/2008:
    "'this article seems a bit biased, however even in honors classrooms, most of the kids there are girls. perhaps it would be better to seperate boys and girls in school. this would also help in situations where, students do not pay attention to the teacher rather the other gender in the class. also in this way, each gender would have a greater oppurtunity to excel in school. teaching techniques could be differed in ways to help either gender. my daughter is 15 but even she agrees with me, in that more effort could be put into assuring students are learning in school and not just dating.'"
    09/30/2008:
    "It's not that the article is biased towards girls. I teach 13 fifth grade boys...just boys. We chose to separate the kids this year into four classes, two of each gender, and I see HUUUGE differences in the way the kids learn. My teammate next door has 14 girls, and they're generally pretty quiet, prefer to read everything first, work quietly together and talk out their thoughts, and like to use manipulatives with math to help them SEE what it is that they're doing. My boys, however, could care less about directions, prefer to work together to 'build' a project that illustrates what they're learning, and they prefer to figure it all out as they go. We use manipulatives for math as well, but the boys use them differently than the girls do. While the girls are generally pretty happy to sit (in desks or on the floor) and work, the boys don't want to. They sit in strange ways in their chairs when they sit in them at all. They use their bodies to help others see what they're saying, and the girls use their words to illustrate it.. They DO learn differently. Should we separate them? I think it depends on the group of kids. This group needed to be separated--the girls are WAAAY ahead of the boys socially (they want to 'date' and the boys are still of the 'ew girls' mentality) and that creates tension in the learning environment on both sides. My students last year (both genders) worked well together...they were both at roughly the same place on a social level, and were pretty happy to work together or on their own, up moving or sitting. Who knows what next year's batch will bring!"
    09/25/2008:
    "Are you saying that technacally girls learn faster than boys? If they do shouldn't we seperate the two when in a learning environment because they learn differently? Would that make that big of a difference? Wouldn't both genders then exibit better grades and learning patterns in school? Although learning to cooroperate with the other gender is an important life skill, is it more importanat to learn at your genders pace? But I don't beleive that girls behave better in a classroom just because they are girls. I think it has ALOT more to do with how their house holds views education. Although I could be a=wroung in that sence and it may be more of a gender thing."
    09/25/2008:
    "Perhaps girls are better adapted to formal learning, but bear in mind that traditional teaching styles were developed long before girls were thought educable."
    09/25/2008:
    "This article seems way biased in favor of girls. Nothing is mentioned about boys strengths or girls weaknesses, just about girls strengths and boys weaknesses. Where is the rest of the study?"
    09/25/2008:
    "I think that it can be damaging to group any sector of people together and say they are the same - whether by race, age, or gender, etc. Not all females are alike, not all males are alike. There are more variations across the board among females or among males than there are between the two sexes. There may be tendencies toward certain behaviors or learning styles in each gender but dont predetermine how someone will learn or act based simply on their gender. That child may lose a valuable part of themselves because they are assumed to behave and/or learn a particular way because of their gender. The genders are much more alike than we are different and I believe that the more women become involved in the science business and the more that is learned we will see this. Read some Anne Fausto-Sterling and the like. "
    09/16/2008:
    "In my opinion, the fact that boys are more interested in moving objects may better help explain earlier societies and men's roles in daily living as the hunters- and not so much the gatherers. Likewise, the skills that the girls acquire faster would seem to suggest that it was generally more natural for girls to connect better with roles involving gathering, social networking, and other daily chores related to the home. I'm not promoting that there is a fixed line with roles that women and men take in a society, just noting the parallels within historically defined cultures of the past. It would be interesting to study a true nomadic culture to see if these generalizations still apply. Lastly, I wonder how these discoveries might positively impact how we teach our children in schools."
    09/16/2008:
    "I think we have known that boys and girls learn differently for some time...I think Dr. Dobson's book 'Bringing Up Boys' is right on. However, the school system/districts do not recognize this. While I appreciated the article and agree with most of it, until we get our school systems/districts to recognize and actually do something in the classroom to assist the differences, our boys will continue to be pushed to 'conform' to the ways girls learn, rather than the way boys learn, and thus they will continue to struggle, especially if your son has a LD."
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