Failing Boys?

Book excerpt: Failing Boys? Issues in Gender and Achievement challenges the widespread perception that all boys are underachieving at school. It raises the more important and critical questions of which boys? At what stage of education? And according to what criteria? The issues surrounding boys' 'underachievement' have been at the centre of public debate about education and the raising of standards in recent years. Media and political responses to the 'problem of boys' have tended to be simplistic, partial, and owe more to 'quick fixes' than investigation and research. Failing Boys? provides a detailed and nuanced 'case study' of the issues in the UK, which will be of international relevance as the moral panic is a globalised one, taking place in diverse countries. The contributors to this book take seriously the issues of boys' 'underachievement' inside and outside school from a critical perspective which draws on the insights of previous feminist studies of education to illuminate the problems associated with the education of boys. This will be a key text for educators, policy makers, students and teachers of education, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies and others interested in gender and achievement.