ifteen-year-olds are in the middle of adolescence – a time when children start to claim their
independence from their parents and when social acceptance by one’s peers can have a powerful
influence on behaviour (Baumeister and Leary, 1995; Rubin, et al., 1998). Other students can
encourage and support their classmates in their drive to achieve; they can also undermine
students’ motivation (Ladd et al., 2012).
Around this time, too, gender differences in attitudes towards school and learning become
evident. These seem to be strongly related to how girls and boys have absorbed society’s notions
of “masculine” and “feminine” behaviour and pursuits as they were growing up. For example,
several research studies suggest that, for many boys, it is not acceptable to be seen to be interested
in school work. Boys adopt a concept of masculinity that includes a disregard for authority,
academic work and formal achievement. For these boys, academic achievement is not “cool”
(Salisbury et al., 1999). Although an individual boy may understand how important it is to study
and achieve at school, he will choose to do neither for fear of being excluded from the society
of his male classmates (Van Houtte, 2004). Indeed, some have suggested that boys’ motivation
at school dissipates from the age of eight onwards, and that by the age of 10 or 11, 40% of boys
belong to one of three groups: the “disaffected”, the “disappointed” and the “disappeared”.
Members of the latter group either drop out of the education system or are thrown out (Salisbury
et al., 1999). Meanwhile, studies show that girls seem to “allow” their female peers to work hard
at school, as long as they are also perceived as “cool” outside of school (Van Houtte, 2004).
Other studies suggest that girls get greater intrinsic satisfaction from doing well at school than
boys do (DiPrete and Buchmann, 2013).
I'm not surprised at all though. Maths was my favourite subject in primary school but by the time I hit about 14 I started disengaging after copping similar crap.
