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Back in 1960, more than twice as many men as women between the ages of 26-28 were college graduates. As late as 1970, only 14 percent of young women between the ages of 26 and 28 had finished college, compared to 20 percent of men. But then a dramatic change occurred. While men's college completion rates slowed, women's skyrocketed.

Between 1970 and 2010, men's rate of B.A. completion grew by just 7 percent, rising from 20 to 27 percent in those 40 years. In contrast, women's rates almost tripled, rising from 14 percent to 36 percent. Today women also earn 60 percent of all master's degrees and more than half of all doctoral and professional degrees. The only significant area of education in which women still lag behind men is in their representation in science and engineering programs. But even in some science fields they have made progress; only 25 percent of advanced engineering degrees go to women, but they earn 52 percent of master's and doctoral degrees in the life sciences.

The rise of women in the educational realm has not wiped out the gender wage gap - even women with a college degree continue to earn less on average than men with a college degree. But the rapid rise of women with college degrees has certainly narrowed the gender wage gap. In 1978 full-time working women earned 62 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned. By 2011 this had increased to 82 cents. And unlike the past, when less-educated men typically out-earned more educated women, the fact that more women are now earning B.A.s means that growing numbers of women do out-earn men in the same age group. If men had as much education as today's women do, their personal income would be nearly 4 percent higher and their unemployment rate a half percentage point lower than it is today.

Girls have outperformed boys in school grades for more than 100 years. But a century ago, women commonly had to choose between getting an education and having a family. According to economist Claudia Goldin, women who graduated from college in the first two decades of the 20 th century were four times less likely to have married by age 50 than their counterparts who did not attend college. And among the college-educated women who married, about 30 percent never had children.

Even when education became more compatible with family life in the 1950s, most Americans believed that the point of an education was simply to make women better wives and mothers, and that a woman's place was in the home. As a result, even though more women entered college in that era, their drop-out rates were much higher, with many quitting college as soon as they got engaged or married.

How education changed

These norms began to erode in the 1960s and 70s, as the civil rights and women's movements promoted equal opportunity in education and employment for women and minorities. These changes, along with advances in contraception, created an environment that was more supportive of women getting more education and using their degrees to find work outside the home. And the increasing wage advantage of college-educated workers has given them a powerful incentive to do so. Three decades ago full-time workers with a bachelor's degree earned 40 percent more than those with only a high school diploma; today, they earn about 80 percent more.

In the 1970s, boys led girls in their college preparatory coursework, but today more girls than boys take these advanced classes. For example, 43 percent of girls complete both Algebra 2 and Chemistry in high school; only 38 percent of boys do. Moreover, among students taking these advanced courses, girls earn grades that are on average .20 GPA points higher than boys.

The puzzling gender achievement gap and what "they" say

But why do boys get lower grades than girls, and why have they responded so much more slowly and partially to changes in the job market that have increased the rewards for academic achievement? Researchers agree that it is not because girls are smarter. In fact, while boys score slightly higher in math tests and girls score slightly higher in reading tests, overall the cognitive abilities of boys and girls are very similar. The difference in grades lies in effort and engagement. On average, girls are more likely than boys to report that they like school and that good grades are very important to them. Girls also spend more time studying than boys.

Many observers believe that boys' lower engagement with school is a result of biological differences between males and females. They say that boys need to engage in rough and tumble play, get their hands dirty, build things, and read books about war, espionage and sports if they are supposed to learn. Boys fail, they claim, because schools do not give boys enough opportunities to do "boy" stuff.

What we say

We do not agree. Our research shows that boys' underperformance in school has more to do with society's norms about masculinity than with anatomy, hormones or brain structure. In fact, boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama, and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these cultural activities are often denigrated as un-masculine by pre-adolescent and adolescent boys - especially those from working- or lower-class backgrounds. Sociologists C.J. Pascoe and Edward Morris relate numerous examples of boys who strive for good grades as being labeled "pussies" or "fags" by their peers.

Commentators who emphasize boys' special needs usually propose that we make schools more "boy-friendly" by offering single-sex classrooms where "boys can be boys," by recruiting more male teachers and by providing more rough and tumble activities. Our research shows that, contrary to what is rapidly becoming "conventional wisdom," this is precisely the wrong strategy. Most boys and girls learn more in classrooms where girls are present. In classrooms with more girls, both boys and girls score higher on math and reading tests. And several recent studies refute the claim that teacher gender matters for boys' or girls' achievement.

Two key findings for the way forward

Our research yields two important findings. First, boys have less understanding than girls about how their future success in college and work is directly linked to their academic effort in middle and high school. In part, this may be due to many Americans still hearkening back to a time when job success for many men was linked more to physical strength and hard manual labor than to getting good grades in school. Young men as well as women will be further motivated to do well in school when our education system provides a clearer link between educational programs and workplace opportunities in our changing labor market.

Second, the most important predictor of boys' achievement is the extent to which the school culture expects, values, and rewards academic effort. We need schools that set high expectations, treat each student as an individual (as opposed to a gender stereotype), and motivate all students to invest in their education so they can reap the big returns to a college degree that exist in today's labor market.

The win-win news is that the same reforms that help more boys achieve college success help girls as well. For example, schools with strong science curricula not only promote male achievement but increase girls' plans to major in science and engineering. Schools that promote strong academic climates reduce gender gaps in grades and promote healthy, multi-faceted gender identities for both boys and girls. In education, as in the rest of society, it's time to discard the zero-sum game of the "gender wars" mentality and start helping males and females to work together for success.

Originally released March 2013.

Thomas A. DiPrete is in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. Much of his research has been published including What Have We Learned? RC28's Contributions to Knowledge about Social Stratification.

Claudia Buchmann is in the Department of Sociology at the Ohio State University. She focuses on gender, race, and class inequalities in education within the United States.

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The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools - Council on Contemporary Families

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Back in 1960, more than twice as many men as women between the ages of 26-28 were college graduates. As late as 1970, only 14 percent of young women between the ages of 26 and 28 had finished college, compared to 20 percent of men. But then a dramatic change occurred.

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Students at Buchanan High School in Fresno, California, switched gender norms for a day in January following the Clovis Unified School Board's decision not to revise a decades-old dress code that may violate state gender-rights law. Trustees voted against recommendations to allow boys to have long hair and earrings. The trustees also refused to remove language in the code that says that dresses and skirts are for girls.

A female student at Buchanan High School said students are fighting back -- not only because they feel like they're not free to express themselves, but also because they believe that clothing rules shouldn't be different between genders.

This is one of many protests against dress codes that students say are sexist or non-inclusive to transgender students and those who don't conform to one gender. Although dress codes have long been a topic of controversy, there has been a resurgence recently on social media of students fighting to make dress codes equal and inclusive. With changing times, students are fighting to express their identity freely.

Nineteen percent of the 7,800 students surveyed in middle and high schools across the country said they were prevented from wearing clothing deemed "inappropriate" based on their gender, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's 2013 National School Climate Survey. Teens are asking their schools to update policies to reflect the changing norms in society.

Last year, more than 200 students on New York's Staten Island -- almost all of them female -- got detentions over dress code infractions.In Florida, students were publicly shamed for violating dress code by being forced to wear "shame suits."

Students are using their clothing to make a statement against the fairness of dress codes policies and how they're enforced. Oklahoma student Rose Lynn scribbled on her shirt what a school administrator told her when she was sent home for violating dress code. "It doesn't cover your crotch," her shirt read. "You'll distract the boys."

Lynn's Facebook post -- in which she called out her school for sending her home for what she thought was an appropriate outfit -- went viral in December. Her post showed the outfit she originally wore to school and the new one she returned wearing.

"So once again, society has failed to advocate young ladies, by confining them in a box, where they are stripped from their sense of self-respect and self-expression, rather than teaching young men to respect the boundaries of young ladies," Lynn wrote.

She and her mother, Misti Delgado, met with the school's principal and Lawton Public Schools' supervisor of secondary education following her viral post.

"They asked her to work with a counselor to bring awareness to this issue at her school and across the country," Delgado told CNN. "They are working together to increase education about this subject."

Not only have students been disciplined for violating dress codes, some say they've faced discrimination. A high school boy on a cheerleading team in Ohio was denied lunch in early February for wearing a bow in his hair. Boys at West High School in Columbus, Ohio, then wore bows in their hair to show their solidarity for him.

The student told CNN affiliate WSYX that the lunch lady told him that he couldn't wear the bow because he wasn't a girl. Students started a Twitter campaign #BowsforBoys to show support and protest the discrimination. The school told WSYX that discrimination is not tolerated, and moved the lunch lady to a job in which she doesn't interact with students.

Some high school girls say the language of their school dress codes unfairly targets them. Last fall, a group of girls at Charleston County School of the Arts​ in North Charleston, South Carolina, wore shirts with a scarlet "A" that read: "I am not A distraction." They were inspired by the movement #IAmMoreThanADistraction that was started by middle schoolers in South Orange, New Jersey. Charleston students took their own spin on it -- they used the red "A" symbol from "The Scarlet Letter" and started a viral Twitter campaign using the hashtag #IamnotADistraction.

Following the protest, administrators at the school in North Charleston met with the students who organized it and clarified the school's expectations. Daniel Head, Charleston County School District spokesman, told CNN that the school will interact respectfully with students who are not in compliance with the district's dress code expectations. There has been no change to the district policy.

"The procedures for addressing students still involve sending students to the front office staff member, but as a result of the protest, there is a heightened awareness around students' perceptions of dress, self-expression, and individuality," he said.

Students aren't the only ones fighting back: Many parents also say that dress codes are unfair to their children. Niv Miyasato, the father of one of the girls who started #IAmMoreThanADistraction in New Jersey, wrote an open letter to the principal of his daughter's school asking the school not to shame students. He told CNN that the girls started the movement because they saw an injustice and decided to take action against it.

Miyasato said the students noticed classmates being singled out for their clothing, and they feel that enforcement of the policy causes a disruption in the students' education. "The girls that organized it care less about the actual code than the sexism inherent in the code," he said.

Miyasato and several other parents went to the board of education in South Orange following the girls' protest. The dress code was changed districtwide and implemented for the 2015-2016 school year.

"It's been so good to know that something like this matters to people and that every voice counts in helping to find a fair approach," Miyasato said.

Inspired by the viral #IAmMoreThanADistraction movement, Citrus High School student Mari Tufts, 17, conducted an experiment to find out if girls' clothing is truly a distraction to their male counterparts. The Inverness, Florida, student won a place at the Florida State Science and Engineering Fair, where she'll also share her findings.

While 15 boys completed multiplication tables, Tufts showed them 26 different pictures of girls in different outfits and timed how long they were "distracted" by the pictures.

"I did it so people will start to see that girls are not a distraction and to stop teaching young men that it is an acceptable excuse to be distracted from their education," Tufts said.

"I found there was no correlation between any of the photos that were in dress code or out of dress code. So I proved clothes that were dress code violations were no more distracting" than clothes that conformed to the dress code, she said of her science project.

Research by Education Partnerships, Inc. shows that the effects of dress code policies on education are inconclusive. However, "some parents and legal authorities claim that when students either are sent home or placed in isolation because of dress code violations, it has a negative effect on their educational opportunity and ultimate performance," EPI reports.

Bárbara Cruz, a professor at University of South Florida and author of "School Dress Codes: A Pro/Con Issue," told CNN there are some advantages to dress codes, including increasing student achievement by focusing on an academic environment and in the case of uniforms, creating a communal team spirit. However, there are also negatives that encroach on students' rights as individuals and discriminate against transgender youth.

For students who violate dress code policy, the punishment is typically being removed from class or sent home. As a parent and educator, Cruz does not condone removing students from class because she said it denies that student an education.

"For some students, being excluded from the larger school community would be devastating and a confirmation that they don't belong somehow," Cruz said. "For other students, being removed from class might even be seen as a badge of honor if they feel very strongly about the issue and they have been involved in the protests."

Cruz believes the movement is having an impact, and leading to more student input on the policies.

Some students say they hope the protests show their schools' administrations that they have a voice, and that they want change in dress code policies and the ways in which they're being enforced.

"Hopefully, the board will see that we aren't blindly rebelling, but simply advocating for our rights," a Buchanan High School student said.

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gender-equal dress codes: students call for fairness - cnn

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Gender-equal dress codes: Students call for fairness - CNN

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Students at Buchanan High School in Fresno, California, switched gender norms for a day in January following the Clovis Unified School Board's decision not to revise a decades-old dress code that may violate state gender-rights law. Trustees voted against recommendations to allow boys to have long hair and earrings.