Can you point to concrete evidence it is solely nature and not nurture? I’ve never seen evidence of that.
“Why is everyone’s motivation and priorities assumed to be be exactly the same?”
@Ohiodad51 – so why are we even having this discussion? If we assume that people have different motivations and priorities, it should be NO SURPRISE that a segment of the population is saying no to college.
Yet this thread was started with the premise that there is something “wrong” with that.
“Why don’t more men go into teaching? Could it be that’s because of our very attitude toward teaching (“women’s work”) ? What does it say about our society in which men are not interested in shaping the new generation?”
Same for nursing. Men are reluctant to go into “pink collar” jobs, even still. But at least at my institution, we see a little bit of a shift in nursing, likely because of long-term job prospects in that field. Education, not so much.
Nobody said solely nature. There is nature, nurture, and their interaction.
^If you are referring to me, of course not. No one can, which is obviously the point of your post. Can you show the converse?
My question was directed at @sorghum who stated “but my point is the differences are not “shown from an early age”, they are biological.” That statement seems to point to nature over nurture.
If male/female motivations are different - I agree that they often they are - then why is it a problem that men are not going to college? Some number would rather pound nails or blow things up than get the post-secondary education required to teach in elementary school or be a nurse.
Is that a problem? I guess that’s a question for @Zinhead since he started this topic.
But this issue didn’t exist a generation or so ago. And almost all of the elementary school teachers then were women. And yes some of them favored the girls who kept the desk neat and her mouth closed ( I.e. Not me or my sister 
).
So no, I don’t buy that theory
Actually, there have been studies that show that most teachers (yes, female) favor males not females.
It would also be interesting to see if the male/female ratio of college students is becoming slightly more lopsided in favor of women because less men are actually going (a true drop in their attendance) or because MORE women are actually pursuing the college path now.
I did one myself, back in college student teaching in a classroom. Calling on them more often, encouraging them to figure out wrong answers rather than providing the correct one, etc.
I don’t know is this is still true, some 25 years later.
I don’t think it is a problem if men don’t want to go to college. Too many people of both genders go to college and fail to graduate or graduate with inappropriate degrees, and society as a whole would be better off if fewer people attended a university and more go to trade school.
I also don’t see a problem with fewer women going into STEM fields then men. It is their decision. What I do have a problem is with people who push for more women in STEM and then dismiss the lack of men attending college. As they say, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If a lack of women in STEM bothers you, then the low percentage of men in college should bother you too.
Speaking for myself, I’m only bothered if people are being kept out, or discouraged from going.
If people freely choose to go to (not)STEM or (not)college, that’s not a problem.
I would like to see us create some more options for women so more of them can say no to college.
I was just thinking the same thing.
Especially considering what my father/uncles experienced during their 2 year military service obligation in the ROC(Taiwan) during the '50s and early '60s and many older neighbors/friends who were WWII/Korea/Vietnam Vets…including one neighbor who was a retired Marine SNCO with 20+ years of service, veteran of Korea/Vietnam, and served a stint as a drill instructor at Parris Island sometime in the '60s was far far worse than what they’d experience as an apprentice on the job or in some cases…even the ROC/US military of the last 20 or so years.
Let’s just say if one has the lack of sense to complain about the NCOs/officer training instructors being “too hostile” to the recruits/officer trainees with the far greater latitude they had in terms of training/disciplining their charges…it isn’t likely to end well for them or gain them any sympathy/respect from fellow recruits, officer trainees, or their own parents…especially the fathers who served themselves.
And my father did his college infantry officer training from the moment he started undergrad in the ROC(Taiwan) at 16 because he was too young to complete his mandatory military service before undergrad as many college classmates
did.
Fellow college officer trainees who complained too much or deemed unsuited for performance, intelligence, or other reasons were dropped from officer training and in the worst cases, forced to leave college immediately due to being drafted as E-1s and sent to the worst garrisons on the front line with notations in their service record so their new NCOs/officers will single them out for harsher training and disciplinary chores(KP duty).
And in the German and many other countries with similar vocational training systems, the students not only DON’T pay tuition for those programs(defrayed by government educational funding and private industry partnering up with the government to provide curricular and hoping to hire their graduates), they are often paid for attending.
^^^ Lest we idealize the German system – it’s based on tracking as early as grade school. And it’s fairly inflexible. If you’re in your mid-twenties and haven’t been on the right track, but you get your act together and decide to, say, become a doctor or a lawyer – good luck with that in Germany.
Tracking system won’t likely be accepted in the US. Look at the thread talking about doing away with grades/transcripts.
Actually, the German system has become more flexible in this regard in the last few decades.
Someone like you described would be able to attend an institution specifically geared towards late bloomers to get the Abitur necessary to gain admission to university.
Granted, the odds of being admitted to university to study medicine or to a lesser extent Law is going to be as difficult as for those applying from the college prep track due to the keen competition from the limited number of seats to study those fields. Not too different from Med school or elite law school admissions here…except one can start studying medicine/law straight out from college-prep HS/other Abitur granting institutions.
It is still nowhere near as flexible as the system in the US.
I’m not so concerned about the lack of women in STEM because I’ve seen so many education campaigns, scholarships, student support groups, etc. specifically for women in STEM. Yet I’ve been hearing that women are underrepresented in STEM fields because of discrimination since I was little. If the increased effort to “nurture” girls in a different direction still isn’t working, then that could indicate that the root of the issue isn’t societal pressures.
I’m also not concerned about the declining number of men choosing to go to college, per se. But the article did mention that the U.S. education system may be more accommodating to girls than boys, and that this could be a contributing factor. And the “cleansing of boy behavior” could have other adverse effects like decreased academic performance compared to girls, over-discipline, and over-medication. So if that is all true, and people’s concern for this issue makes people take a closer look at our primary and secondary education system, I’m all for that.
Also:
@saillakeerie What do you mean by this?