Chat Wrap-Up: The Problem With Boys

On March 15, the topic for discussion was “The Problem With Boys,” and readers addressed their questions to Thomas Newkirk , a University of New Hampshire professor of English and the author of Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture (Heinemann, 2002). Below are excerpts from the discussion.

Question: Do the academic problems boys are experiencing come as a surprise? If not, what has caused them and how can we fix them?

Newkirk: These problems have been around for a long time. So the question that you raise is a good one. Why are we paying attention to them now? The answer, I think, is that we are living in what [ New York Times columnist] Thomas L. Friedman calls a “flat world,” where historic privileges—national as well as gender—are eroding. In the past, boys could count on opportunities no matter how well they did in school. They could make an end run around the education system. Boys in school today will have to compete. And many of their traditional attitudes toward school and literacy...