Claudia Buchmann

In the United States, women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men since the mid-1980s. We examine the historical continuities in this trend and its sources, as well as changes since 2000 in gender gaps in advanced credentials, fields of study, types of institutions attended, and financing for higher education. The gender gap in bachelor’s degrees has remained stable at a high level over this period and a female advantage in advanced degrees emerged, especially in professional degrees. The deepening gender divide in credentials coincided with rising shares of women attending for-profit institutions and an emerging gender divide in student indebtedness. Thus, women disproportionately carry the promise and bear the costs of educational expansion, with far reaching implications for the future.

This study is the first to use nationally representative data to examine whether differences in gender-typical behaviors among adolescents are associated with high school academic performance and whether such associations vary by race or socioeconomic status. Using wave I data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and linked academic transcript data from the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement study, we find that boys who report moderate levels of gender atypicality earn the highest grade point averages (GPAs), but few boys score in this range. As gender typicality increases, boys’ GPAs decline steeply. In contrast, girls who practice moderate levels of gender typicality earn slightly higher GPAs than other girls. These patterns generally hold across race and socioeconomic status groups.

This chapter focuses on the plight of children in the East African country of Kenya. Like other countries on the continent, Kenya has a large percentage of children and a declining standard of living. It analyzes three topics that illustrate the deteriorating state of children in the country: health, education, and homelessness. The chapter examines several factors that contribute to the poor quality of life of children, including economic decline, ethnic violence, and AIDS. It discusses what can be done to improve the deteriorating situation for children in Kenya. Children of certain ethnic groups often are attacked and driven from the school. Furthermore, teachers have also been threatened or attacked. Grandparents, extended families, and street friends must suddenly care for a whole new generation of children without parents. There are, however, a number of conditions and situations widely believed to cause or exacerbate the declining plight of Kenyan children.

Lack of preparation in science leads to high rates of attrition among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, even among students who are highly oriented toward STEM. Using data for twenty-seven countries from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, we compare the United States with other industrialized countries in terms of fifteen-year-olds’ science achievement and their expectations to focus on STEM in the future. The United States trails most countries in the mean science achievement of the general student population and among students expecting to pursue STEM majors or careers. Lack of curricular standardization in the United States is related to this lower science achievement. Countries with higher curricular standardization exhibit higher average science achievement scores; science achievement and students’ future orientation toward science are also better aligned in these countries. We discuss the implications of these findings for American colleges and universities as they seek to reduce student attrition in STEM fields.

Cross-national research finds that “shadow education”—educational activities outside of formal schooling—tends to confer advantages on already privile