Early Schooling:

The Handicap of Being Poor and Male

Doris R. Entwisle
Karl L. Alexander
Linda S. Olson
Johns Hopkins University

In trying to understand the origin of gender differences favoring girls in reading skills, analysts
have examined mainly the performance of students who are in the same grade, with samples
pooled across socioeconomic status (SES). Using a longitudinal sample in Baltimore, where all
students in a randomly selected panel are the same age and are followed from the beginning
of the first grade, the authors found that the early reading skills of boys who are receiving meal
subsidies—those who are disadvantaged—are lower than those of girls. Among children who
are not on meal subsidies, boys do about the same as girls. This gender gap that emerges over
the elementary school years is explained in terms of the higher retention rate of disadvantaged
boys, which traces back to teachers' low ratings of classroom behavior and reading skills for
boys on meal subsidies and to their parents' lower expectations for boys’ school performance.
The longitudinal design of this study, the early point from which children are followed (age 6),
and the attention given to SES differences in how parents and teachers treat boys are key dif-
ferences between this research and other studies of gender differences in reading compre-
hension. The discussion points up the critical nature of the first-grade transition in relation to
the gender gap and some of its long-term implications.

S
ocial institutions are organized along
lines that reflect both common sense
and society’s values. Boys and girls,
therefore, generally attend school together
because having children of the two sexes in
one school is more economical and this prac-
tice matches social norms of gender egalitar-
ianism. Still, boys and girls perform different-
ly in school, and these differences persist
despite efforts, legislative and otherwise, to
make school truly equal for all. At some times,
it has seemed that boys are better served by
schools than are girls, but at other times, girls
seem better served. Reflecting society’s
changing opinions about which sex is better
served, researchers have focused alternately
on the school problems of one sex and then
the other (see Grant and Pong 2003).
Throughout most of the 20th century, the
relatively poorer performance of boys in lan-
guage arts and reading spurred research on
school practices that might have negative
effects on boys (Brophy 1985; Gates 1961;
Powell 1967; Robinson 1955; Stanchfield 1973;
Stroud and Lindquist 1942; Wilson, Burke, and
Fleming 1939). With the rise of feminism and,
even more, with women’s wholesale entry into
the workforce, questions have come to the fore
about school practices that could have negative
effects on girls, especially in math (see, e.g.,
Schwartz and Hanson 1992).

Sociology of Education 2007, Vol. 80 (April): 114–138 114

Early Schooling
In these early years of the 21st century, how-
ever, boys’ reading and language issues are
once more taking center stage, probably for at
least three reasons. One reason is the convic-
tion that reading is a pivotal skill for everyone.
To use a telephone book or a map, to follow
instructions for assembling a toy, to pay bills, or
to buy groceries all depend on reading. Poor
reading skills are a tremendous burden irre-
spective of gender. The second reason is par-
ents’ opinions that boys will do better in school
if they start school later than girls. Especially if
boys have birthdays late in the calendar year,
parents now tend to “redshirt” their sons and
enter them later than their daughters
(Bellisimo, Sacks, & Mergendoller 1995). The
third reason is the increasing gender imbalance
favoring women in postsecondary education,
coupled with the fact that the national econo-
my increasingly depends on intellectual assets
(Powell and Snellman 2004). The labor market
that young men face is deteriorating (Zemsky
et al. 1998). Between 1971 and 2002, the earn-
ings of young men aged 25–34 without post-
secondary education shrank by about 30 per-
cent, and the number of jobs that were avail-
able to them declined (U.S. Department of
Education 2004, Table 14-1). Put another way,
in 1975, full-time workers without a high
school diploma earned 90 percent as much as
high school graduates, but by 1999, they
earned only 70 percent as much (U.S. Census
Bureau 2002: 1-13).
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN
SCHOOLING
In seeking to understand gender differences
in schooling, analysts have focused much
more intently on the school performance of
adolescents than on that of young children.
There are reasons to suppose, however, that
children’s earliest school experiences matter a
great deal for their long-term educational
attainment. In fact, the literature has suggest-
ed that children are launched into achieve-
ment trajectories when they start formal
schooling or even before and that the pat-
terns of these trajectories are highly stable
over childhood and adolescence (Alexander,
115
Entwisle, and Dauber, 2003; Entwisle,
Alexander, and Olson, 2005, 2006). For this
reason, even seemingly small differences in
the ways boys and girls are treated in the
early grades could have long-lasting repercus-
sions, and we know that such differences in
treatment exist. In preschool, for example,
boys are allowed to spend free time climbing
on blocks or crawling on the floor, while girls,
at the teacher’s suggestion, sit at tables cut-
ting things out of paper (Sadker and Sadker
1994). Preschool teachers are also more likely
to let boys, rather than girls, call out without
raising their hands, talk loudly, or engage in
rough play (Martin 1998).
In elementary school, the evidence is also
extensive that teachers interact differently
with boys and girls. Teachers consistently rate
girls higher than boys in deportment (Brophy
1985), and much of their contact with boys
tends to be negative and disciplinary (Bossert
1981; Huston 1983). Parents also treat ele-
mentary school children of the two sexes dif-
ferently and expect them to behave different-
ly in school. Mothers talk more and use more
supportive speech with daughters than with
sons (Leaper, Anderson, and Sanders 1998),
and although mothers of boys and girls report
similar reading practices, direct observation in
the home says otherwise. Mothers actually
request more information from and talk more
about books with their daughters, and their
conversations about stories include more
praise and encouragement for their daugh-
ters than for their sons (Porche, Ross, and
Snow 2004). Moreover, when children start
school, parents expect that girls will find
school a more comfortable place than boys
will and expect that their daughters will get
better conduct marks than their sons over the
early grades (Entwisle and Baker 1983;
Entwisle and Hayduk 1981).
When inquiring into the possible sources of
gender differences in early schooling, it is
important to consider socioeconomic status
(SES) (see Mickelson 2003), and upon closer
inspection, the gender gap in reading seems to
be characteristic mainly of children from eco-
nomically disadvantaged families. For instance,
using data from the Current Population Survey,
Bianchi (1984) found that, in poverty-level fam-
ilies, boys are more likely than girls to be above
116
the modal age for grade (49 percent versus 36
percent), whereas, in better-off families, boys
and girls are equally likely to be above the
modal age (18 percent versus 17 percent).
Similarly, using data from the National Education
Longitudinal Study of 1988, Burbridge (1991a)
found an association between the gender gap in
reading and family SES and reported that boys in
the lowest SES quartile are much more likely
than are girls to have been held back. These
findings prompted us to explore achievement
patterns in reading comprehension for children
who were receiving meal subsidies in a panel of
Baltimore children and to compare them to
patterns for children who were not receiving
meal subsidies.
We found that boys and girls began the first
grade with roughly equivalent reading scores,
but that over the elementary years, a significant
gender gap developed. At the end of the fifth
year, girls scored 18 points higher than boys
(495 versus 477). Furthermore, subsidy status
and gender interact (the rightmost two panels
of Table 1) because after five years in school,
boys and girls who were not receiving meal
subsidies had equal scores (529 for both), but
among children who were receiving meal sub-
sidies, the scores of boys were significantly
lower than those of girls (458 versus 477).
Thus, the approximate parity in reading
achievement when the children began school
faded over the first five years, but only for stu-
dents in the subsidy group. What are the factors
at home and at school that account for this
gap? How could boys and girls in the same
classroom end up with different levels of facility
in reading? The major purpose of this article is
to report on our development of a multivariate
model that addresses this question and then to
use this model and related information to gain
a better understanding of how gender differ-
ences emerge. The next section lays out some
considerations related to formulating such a
model.
SCHOOL, HOME, AND THE
GENDER GAP
Teachers evaluate children by way of marks
on report cards that students and parents see
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
regularly, and these marks predict how much
children learn (Alexander and Entwisle 1988).
If there is a bias in teachers’ marks favoring
one sex over the other, that bias could be one
source of a gender gap in learning. We know
that “pure” academic performance is not the
only thing that influences teachers’ marks. In
the early grades especially, children’s deport-
ment in school is an important predictor of
reading achievement. For decades, halo
effects have dotted the reading literature, and
noncognitive factors clearly predict teachers’
marks in both reading and conduct. In fact,
classroom behavior can account for as much
as 50 percent of the variance in academic
marks (Farkas et al. 1990; see also Lavy 2004).
Parents could play a role, too. They have
expectations for children’s school perfor-
mance and for how far children will go in
school. They expect girls to be better
behaved in school than boys, and their
expectations are another strong influence on
children’s learning in school (see Entwisle,
Alexander, and Olson 1997). Furthermore,
parents’ expectations predict the specific
actions that parents take to help children
learn, and many of these actions vary by SES.
Higher-SES parents have higher expectations
for their children’s school performance than
do lower-SES parents. They also read to their
children more, see their children’s school
records more often, ensure that their children
borrow books from the library in the summer,
and take their children on more summer trips
than do parents with lower expectations (see
Entwisle et al. 1997).
Although SES is often taken to represent
mainly parents’ economic resources, it
reflects much more, including parents’ tastes
(see, e.g., Mayer 1997). When children begin
formal schooling, parents of all SES levels tell
them about school and how they should
behave, both implicitly and explicitly (Hess
and Shipman 1965). However, these mes-
sages vary in content and style, depending on
parents’ own backgrounds, especially par-
ents’ SES. For instance, middle-SES parents
advocate for their children at school more
often than do lower-SES parents (Baker and
Stevenson 1986; Hess 1970; Lareau 1987,
1992, 2002; Useem 1991) and give their chil-
dren a sense of entitlement. Middle-SES par-
Early Schooling
ents also tend to have the kinds of interper-
sonal skills that foster children’s development
(Hess and Shipman 1965). For example, they
avoid negative feedback with their children
(saying no all the time) and use relatively
complex language to structure everyday
experiences (Hart and Risley 1995). Pointing
to a picture of a lion in a storybook, for
instance, they do not say simply “That is a
lion,” but add “Lions are animals; they eat
other animals, not just grass,” thus identify-
ing lions as one of a class of animals and then
differentiating lions from herbivorous ani-
mals. Middle-SES parents are also more likely
to read aloud to their children to have fun or
to start conversations (Mikulecky, 1996). The
imprint of parents’ status and class standing
runs much deeper than economic and lin-
guistic patterns, however, and parents’ differ-
ent worldviews also constrain the horizons of
some children but expand the horizons of
others--a “sociology of the probable” (see,
e.g., Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; Lamont
and Lareau 1988).
Relatively little attention has been paid to
how teachers’ and parents’ treatment of boys
and girls differ along SES lines when it comes
to issues related to school. No doubt boys’
low behavioral ratings reveal real differences
in how boys and girls behave in school. Yet
because most teachers are middle class, they
may find the behavior of middle-SES boys to
be more compatible with their standards than
the behavior of low-SES boys, since less social
distance separates teachers from middle-SES
boys. In parallel fashion, fathers of middle-SES
boys, by virtue of their own interests and
worldviews, may model behaviors that are
more relevant to school than may fathers of
low-SES boys. In other words, middle-SES
parents probably socialize their sons in ways
that are more compatible with the student
role than do low-SES parents by reading for
pleasure or playing board games for fun, for
example.
Actually, the interaction of students’ home
and school experiences may hold the key to
how SES and gender interact in the schooling
process. The cultural enrichment and support
for education that middle-class parents tend
to give both sons and daughters can serve as
a counterweight to alienation that boys gen-
117
erally feel toward school. That is, if boys gen-
erally find adjustment to the student role
more difficult than girls do, then middle-class
boys benefit from having parents who are
more likely to reinforce the values and habits
that are conducive to success as a student.
The rest of this article is organized as fol-
lows. After we describe the data archive, we
present a univariate analysis of children’s
marks and parents’ attitudes that points up
gender differences. This analysis also de-
scribes the behaviors of teachers and parents
that could bear on gendered activities and
attitudes in school or at home. Next, we pre-
sent a multivariate model that is designed to
explain children’s gains in achievement in
relation to gender differences. Then, we dis-
cuss the model’s implications, drawing on
qualitative information about parents’ and
teachers’ behaviors related to gender. Finally,
we summarize the longer-term consequences
of a male reading deficit and consider various
policy changes that may be beneficial.
THE DATA
The Beginning School Study (BSS) provided
the necessary panel data for estimating our
model. The BSS is limited to Baltimore City
but is probably representative of other large
eastern cities with high poverty rates. Its sam-
pling and research design have some particu-
lar strengths for addressing issues that are
related to gender differences in schooling.
One is that children come from a fairly wide
range of SES backgrounds and are followed
closely from the time they begin the first
grade. Standardized test scores for reading
comprehension and marks are available over
the elementary school years. The children in
the panel were randomly selected and started
school in the same system in September
1982, so grading standards, teachers’ salaries,
curricula, and the like were the same across
schools.
Sample
BSS sampling proceeded in two stages. First,
in 1982, a random sample of 20 Baltimore
City public elementary schools, stratified by
118
racial mix (6 mainly African American, 6 pre-
dominantly white, and 8 integrated) and by
SES (14 inner-city or working-class and 6 mid-
dle- class schools), was selected. The propor-
tion of African American students averaged
99.5 percent in the 6 African American schools,
6 percent in the 6 white schools, and 48 per-
cent in the 8 integrated schools (range 17 per-
cent to 87 percent). Second, within each
school, about a dozen students who were start-
ing the first grade were randomly sampled
from each first-grade classroom (at least 2, usu-
ally 3, classrooms per school) using kinder-
garten lists from the previous spring supple-
mented by class rosters after school began in
fall 1982. Ninety-seven percent of the parents
of the randomly chosen children consented to
participate in the project. The final BSS sample
consisted of 790 students who began the first
grade (nonrepeaters) in fall 1982. The city pub-
lic school system at the time enrolled about 77
percent African Americans (U.S. Census Bureau
1983), so to sustain black–white comparisons,
the BSS oversampled whites. As a result, the
final sample was 55 percent African American.
The timing of BSS observations reduces
some problems of endogeneity. Parents’
expectations for their children’s success in
reading are ascertained before they see their
children’s first report cards, for example, and
so reveal whether the parents’ expectations
favor one sex over the other before there is
feedback from the school. Also, panel mem-
bers are followed up to age 22, so we could
see whether deficits in reading comprehen-
sion early in school matter for students’
employment or educational attainment in
early adulthood.
Children who are eligible for meal subsidies
can be compared with those who are not eligi-
ble. Using meal subsidy as an indicator of fam-
ily SES makes our findings comparable to those
of many other studies, but we stress that meal
subsidy is an indicator that implies much more.
Parents of BSS children who are on meal subsi-
dies differ from parents of children who are not
in many other ways that are relevant for chil-
dren’s schooling. Subsidy level is a proxy for a
wide range of characteristics that are often sub-
sumed under family SES, including parents’
educational level, job prestige level, resident
father, and much else (see Appendix Table A1).
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
The analysis sample (N = 403) is listwise
present. To be included, cases must have
scores on the California Achievement Test
(CAT) at the beginning of Year 1 and end of
Year 5, plus a complete set of the predictor
variables used in the regression model. In the
analysis sample, 68 percent of children were
on meal subsidies and 32 percent were not.
It is important to note that the sample is
longitudinal. Every sample member had been
in the Baltimore school system for five years,
but sample members who were held back or
who were in special education could be in the
fourth or lower grades. The analysis sample
here is thus of a different composition from
cross-sectional samples based on grade level.
See Table A1 for further information.
Procedures
When the children started the first grade,
their race, gender, and eligibility for subsi-
dized meals (indicative of a low family
income) were determined from school
records. Parents’ education, occupations, and
expectations for their children’s marks in
reading and math, as well as parents’ expec-
tations of how far children would go in
school, were ascertained in interviews either
prior to or concurrent with the children’s
enrollment in the first grade. Additional inter-
views with students and parents were con-
ducted on a regular schedule (see Entwisle et
al. 1997).
Teacher questionnaires covered the teach-
ers’ social and professional backgrounds; atti-
tudes toward the classroom and school envi-
ronment; and, at the end of each year, their
expectations for individual children and ratings
of the children’s personal qualities. School
records provided data on the children’s meal-
subsidy status, marks, retention, test scores,
and much more. The schools administered
CATs in verbal comprehension in October and
again in May near the end of each school year.
Data on the educational attainment and
employment of the panel members at age 22
came from a Young Adult Survey in 1998–99,
16 years after the students began the first
grade and 4–5 years after on-time students
graduated from high school. This survey was
conducted by telephone, when possible, or in
Early Schooling
face-to-face interviews. Sample attrition
between the first grade and age 22 was rea-
sonably low. At age 22, 80 percent of the
original random sample provided data on
their developmental histories and current
employment and/or school enrollment.
The sample that was used to estimate the
model consists of listwise present data for 276
students who were eligible for meal subsidies
and for 127 students who were classified as
“nonsubsidy” (see the Appendix and
Appendix Table A1), all of whom attended
Baltimore City public schools from 1982 to
1987. The mothers of children in the subsidy
group had about 10 years of schooling, and
the mothers of children in the nonsubsidy
group had about 13 years of schooling.
DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
Descriptive data include the children’s marks
in reading and deportment and retention
rates, as well as the parents’ expectations, all
summarized by gender and meal-subsidy sta-
tus in Table 1. Girls generally get better marks
in reading than boys do (Entwisle and Hayduk
1982) even if their standardized test scores
are equalized (Brophy and Good 1970;
Prawat and Jarvis 1980; Rehberg and
Rosenthal 1978). Likewise, BSS girls’ first
reading marks are a little higher than BSS
boys’ (1.87 versus 1.84, corresponding to just
under a C (B = 3, C =2) (see Table 1), but not
significantly. By the end of Year 4, however,
girls’ marks are significantly higher than
boys’. This gap (.19) is significant for the sub-
sidy group (.24) but smaller (.11) and not sig-
nificant (and higher for boys) for the nonsub-
sidy group (Table 1).
These gender differences in the marks that
children receive are anticipated in parents’
reading expectations for their children. When
the BSS children started school, the parents
were asked to guess their first mark in reading
before there was feedback from the school. At
the beginning of the first grade, the parents
of boys on subsidy expected to see lower
reading marks than did the parents of girls on
subsidy, and by the end of Year 4, these dif-
ferences in expectations had become more
pronounced (2.54 for boys compared to 2.78
119
for girls). By contrast, among the nonsubsidy
parents, there was no difference in expecta-
tions for marks by gender, either when the
children began the first grade or four years
later.
Also, as in other studies, the BSS teachers
consistently rated the girls’ classroom behav-
ior higher than the boys’. At the beginning of
the first grade, the gender gap in conduct rat-
ings for children on subsidy was greater than
that for children who were not on subsidy
(.21 versus .01; see Table 1). After four years
in school, a standardized measure that com-
bined six classroom behaviors showed gender
gaps for both the students on subsidy and
those not on subsidy (.25 and .12).
Retention
Poor behavioral ratings lead to retention in
grade (Alexander et al. 2003), and in this
sample, by the end of Grade 1, 25 percent of
the boys on subsidy were retained compared
with 17% of the girls. Among students who
were not on subsidy, the retention rate was
much lower for both sexes and virtually the
same (6 percent and 5 percent; see Table 1,
next to last row). By the end of Year 5, 59 per-
cent of the boys on subsidy versus 43 percent
of the girls on subsidy had been retained. By
comparison, nonsubsidy boys and girls had
equivalent and much lower rates of retention
(18 percent and 16 percent). For children on
subsidy, the much higher retention rate of
boys than girls could, in itself, produce a gen-
der gap in achievement scores because after
five years in school, students who have been
held back will not have gone as far in the ele-
mentary school curriculum as their promoted
counterparts. If they are in Grade 4, rather
than Grade 5, their progress will be assessed
by CAT tests that are appropriate for Grade 4,
not for Grade 5.
Boys’ marks in classroom behavior are
lower than girls’, and boys’ marks count more
than girls’ for making retention decisions.
Given an unsatisfactory conduct rating, the
probability of being retained in the first grade
is 27 percent for boys and 18 percent for girls.
Teachers’ reactions to students matter in
another way, too, because despite the parity
by gender in standardized test scores when
Table 1. Measures of Students’ CAT Reading Scores, Marks, Classroom Behavior, and Retention in Elementary School, by Gender and Meal-Subsidy
120
Status
Total Sample (N = 403) Meal Subsidy (n = 276) No Meal Subsidy (n = 127)
Gender Gender Gender
Measure Male Female Gap Male Female Gap Male Female Gap

Reading Comprehension, Fall of Grade 1 277 282 4 272 276 4 292 293 1
Reading Comprehension, End of Year 5 477 495 18* 458 477 19* 529 529 0
Reading Mark, Beginning of Grade 1 1.84 1.87 .03 1.68 1.68 .00 2.25 2.21 -.04
Reading Mark, End of Year 4 2.17 2.36 .19* 1.90 2.14 .24* 2.88 2.77 -.11
Parent’s Reading Mark Expectation, Beginning of Grade 1 2.63 2.75 .12 2.50 2.66 .16 2.96 2.91 -.05
Parent’s Reading Mark Expectation, Beginning of Year 4 2.74 2.91 .17 2.54 2.78 .24* 3.15 3.13 -.02

Classroom Behavior, Beginning of First Gradea

Conduct 1.70 1.86 .16* 1.62 1.83 .21* 1.90 1.91 .01
Effort 1.64 1.73 .09 1.56 1.64 .07 1.84 1.91 .07
Attention 1.57 1.73 .16* 1.48 1.64 .15* 1.78 1.89 .11
Class participation 1.75 1.73 -.02 1.70 1.66 -.04 1.88 1.84 -.04
Completes assignments 1.65 1.72 .07 1.58 1.64 .06 1.84 1.88 .04
Works independently 1.51 1.63 .12* 1.42 1.53 .10 1.74 1.81 .07
Classroom Behavior Compositeb 1.63 1.73 .10* 1.56 1.65 .09* 1.82 1.86 .04
Classroom Behavior, End of Year 4
Conduct 1.60 1.81 .21* 1.52 1.75 .24* 1.83 1.92 .09
Effort 1.57 1.83 .26* 1.49 1.79 .30* 1.79 1.91 .12
Attention 1.49 1.81 .32* 1.38 1.75 .37* 1.77 1.91 .14
Class participation 1.71 1.84 .13* 1.65 1.80 .15* 1.85 1.91 .05
Completes assignments 1.59 1.85 .26* 1.51 1.80 .29* 1.79 1.95 .16*
Works independently 1.62 1.80 .18* 1.58 1.76 .18* 1.72 1.88 .16*
Classroom Behavior Compositeb 1.60 1.82 .22* 1.53 1.77 .25* 1.79 1.91 .12*
Retention in Grade 1 .20 .13 .07 .25 .17 .08 .06 .05 .01
Cumulative Retention Through Year 5 .48 .33 .15* .59 .43 .17* .18 .16 .02
aMeasures of classroom behavior are coded 1 = needs improvement, 2 = satisfactory.
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson

bClassroom Behavior Composite is the mean of at least 4 of the 6 possible work-habit ratings.
*p < .05.
Early Schooling
BSS children begin school, teachers place
more boys than girls in low reading groups,
especially among subsidy students: 34 percent
of boys on subsidy are in low reading groups
compared to 24 percent of girls. By the end
of Grade 1, 36 percent of boys and 31 per-
cent of girls on subsidy have not advanced
from the primer to the Grade 1 reader, com-
pared with just 11 percent of boys and 13
percent of girls who are not on subsidy. These
patterns suggest another reason why stu-
dents on subsidy fail to progress as fast as
those who are not on subsidy, especially boys.
In sum, lower reading marks, lower conduct
marks, tracking differences beginning in the
first grade, and gender differences in weights
assigned to conduct in making retention
decisions all contribute to higher retention
rates for the boys on subsidy.
MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS
The multivariate model (see Figure 1), which
is proposed to explain achievement gains,
was adapted from an earlier one (see Entwisle
and Alexander 1996). By estimating test
scores at the end of Year 5 and controlling for
the initial test score, the model evaluates chil-
dren’s gains in reading comprehension from
the beginning of Year 1 to the end of Year 5.
This model can be estimated separately for
Figure 1. Conceptual Model Predicting Gains in Scores on Reading Comprehension Tests over
Elementary School
121
children on subsidy and for those not on sub-
sidy to pinpoint the factors that help explain
the gap.
Students arrive at school with some read-
ing skills, so the beginning CAT score serves
as a baseline against which to estimate how
much other variables contribute to five-year
gains in reading achievement. Gender is the
first independent variable in the model, and
by entering the other variables in the model
sequentially after it, we can see how the gen-
der coefficient changes as other variables are
entered. Race and family SES, which are
entered next, control for differences in race or
SES within the meal-subsidy groups. Parents’
psychological support, entered next, is a
composite of parents expectations for chil-
dren’s marks in reading and math, plus their
estimates of how far the children will go in
school (see Table A1). Inserting parents’ sup-
port in the model tests whether it can explain
part of the gender gap. Parents’ support does
predict students’ levels of school achievement
(Entwisle and Hayduk 1982; Entwisle et al.
1997), and the descriptive information
reviewed earlier suggests that parents’ influ-
ence could shape classroom behavior in ways
that lead to gender differences.
Marks are entered next. Girls’ better marks
could lead girls to learn more than boys, and
students’ marks in reading by the end of
Grade 1 already favor girls.
122
Students’ reading achievement responds
to conduct and classroom behavior (Entwisle
and Alexander 1996; Farkas et al. 1990), so
children with low ratings in classroom behav-
iors (here a composite variable including con-
duct, level of effort, class participation, and
the like) would not be expected to gain as
much on achievement tests as would those
with more favorable ratings. To allow for pos-
sible changing levels of behavior over the
early years of school, one behavior composite
was constructed for Year 2 and another was
constructed for Year 4, and both are inserted
in the model.
Finally, a dichotomous variable indicates
whether the child has been retained over the
first five years of school. Retained children do
not gain as much on standardized tests as do
their promoted peers (Alexander et al. 2003),
and in the BSS panel, as elsewhere (see
Hauser, Pager, and Simmons 2000), more
boys than girls are retained. Even more
important here is that retained children are
taking CAT tests below the Grade 5 level.
While there is little doubt that test scores
at the end of elementary school are related to
the predictors (beginning test scores, marks,
parental expectations, students’ behavior,
and grade retention), this model focuses
attention not on the strength of these indi-
vidual coefficients, but on how these predic-
tors relate to the relative size of the gender-
gap coefficient—that is, how the gender gap
diminishes (or grows) as we control for each
of these predictors. Furthermore, by estimat-
ing the model separately by meal-subsidy sta-
tus, we can determine whether these predic-
tors produce a gender gap in gains in test
scores among subsidy students, nonsubsidy
students, or both.
Estimating the Model
Gender coefficients are highlighted in bold in
Table 2. At the start, the gender coefficient is
17.3 and significant for the subsidy group
and –0.8 and not significant for the nonsub-
sidy group (see Table 2, column 1, subsidy
and nonsubsidy panels). This difference is
reflected in the significant gender x subsidy
status interaction term (see Table 2, the total
sample). Note that metric coefficients in the
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
model can be read as test score points.
Children on Subsidy Girls on subsidy gain
17.3 points more than do boys in reading
achievement over the first five years of school
(column 1, middle panel, Table 2). Adjusting
for any imbalance between boys and girls by
race or SES increases the gender coefficient
by only 1.5 points (17.3 to 18.8). Parents’
support reduces the gender coefficient by 2.2
points (18.8 – 15.6). This reduction is consis-
tent with the descriptive analyses that sug-
gest that (1) parents of children on subsidy
think that girls will do better than boys, and
(2) parents of children on subsidy have ideas
about gender-role differentiation that could
help their daughters adapt to the student role
more easily than their sons. Entering the coef-
ficient for reading mark reduces the gender
coefficient by 4 points (to 11.6). Teachers’
marks do favor girls, as was noted earlier, and
this imbalance accounts for some of the gap.
Students’ behavioral ratings in Year 2 reduce
the gender coefficient by over 5 points, from
11.6 to 6.1, by more than any previous vari-
able, and the gender difference is no longer
significant. The Year 4 behavioral ratings
reduce it further, by 3.2 points. Entering the
retention variable finally reduces the gender
coefficient to less than 1 point.1 The full
model thus explains 44 percent of the vari-
ance in gains in test scores among children
on subsidy and accounts for the gender gap
in test scores, implicating mainly parents’
support, reading marks, behavioral ratings,
and retention rates as factors that favor girls.
Children Not on Subsidy Gains in CAT
scores of the nonsubsidy group differ by gen-
der only a little in the unadjusted model (b =
-0.8), favoring boys. With race and SES
added, a small gender difference favors girls,
and the addition of the other independent
variables does little to change the gender
gap. The gender gap is thus not significant
for nonsubsidy children at the beginning of
Grade 1 or after five years in school.
Yearly Growth The focus of the model, as
noted, is not on the relative strength of the
individual predictors, but on how the individ-
ual predictors influence the size of the gender
Table 2. OLS Regression Model Predicting Reading Comprehension at the End of the Fifth Year of School, by Meal-Subsidy Status (Metric
Coefficients Measure Gains in Test Scores over Elementary School)

Total Sample Meal Subsidy No Meal Subsidy

(N = 403) (n = 276) (n = 127)
Early Schooling

1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Reading CAT, Fall Grade 1 .27* .73* .50* .47* .42* .26* .23* .23* .21* .90* .79* .55* .39* .39* .38* .37*
Gender -0.0 0.9 17.3* 18.8* 15.6* 11.6 6.1 2.9 -0.2 -0.8 2.8 1.5 5.7 5.8 2.4 0.9
Race -8.9 -8.6 -16.8* -7.0 -4.7 -4.4 -3.9 -23.3* -22.4* -17.2 -17.2 -15.5 -15.1
Family SES 12 .6* 32.0* 19.5 14.6 12.1 10.7 6.1 28.1* 19.0* 14.7 14.7 15.1* 18.4*
Parent’s Psychological
Support 12.4* 24.5* 12.6* 11.3* 11.0* 11.0* 31.3* 16.8* 16.9* 16.5* 13.7
Reading Mark, End of
Grade 1 17.8* 33.4* 31.3* 30.2* 17.2* 27.1* 27.1* 25.9* 16.1*
Classroom Behavior
Composite, Year 2 15.0 40.2* 34.4* 20.9* -0.9 -19.5 -24.2
Classroom Behavior
Composite, Year 4 21.6* 18.6 21.2 33.6 31.4
Retained in Grade,
Years 1–5 -40.1* -39.6* -49.4*
Meal-Subsidy Status by
Sex Interaction 39.5*

R2 .55 .23 .10 .13 .19 .35 .38 .38 .44 .26 .34 .42 .47 .47 .47 .51

*p < .05.
123
124 Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson

coefficient. In fact, the predictor coefficients
are, for the most part, similar for both subsidy
and nonsubsidy students. What is different is
how they come together over the course of
the elementary school years to produce a sig-
nificant gender gap in test scores among sub-
sidy children but not among nonsubsidy chil-
dren. The model thus illustrates how, for sub-
sidy students, the female advantage in
parental expectations, reading marks, class-
room behavior, and retention, as laid out in
Table 1, together translate into lower reading
comprehension scores for boys at the end of
five years of elementary school. Since there
are few differences in these predictors
between male and female nonsubsidy stu-
dents (see Table 1), it is not surprising that for
these students, the parallel regression model
reveals no relationship between the predic-
tors and the gender coefficient. What are the
patterns over time? When we compare annu-
al growth across subsidy groups (see Table 3),
the gender gap is negligible for both groups
in Year 1. At the end of Year 2, however, a sig-
nificant difference emerges: 23 points favor
girls in the subsidy group and 6 points favor
boys in the nonsubsidy group. In Years 3, 4,
and 5, the patterns stabilize, probably
because retention rates are much the same by
gender.
The cumulative five-year retention coeffi-
cient (see Table 2) is large for both subsidy and
nonsubsidy children (-39.6 and –49.4), show-
ing big debits in test scores associated with
retention (see Table 2). As we noted, however,
retained children are taking the curriculum and
tests used for the fourth (or earlier) grade, so
these debits are to be expected. What is impor-
tant is that these huge retention coefficients
lead to a relatively small decline in the size of
the gender coefficient. It is the precursors of
retention, like the poor reading marks and
classroom behavior seen at the end of Year 2,
that change the gender coefficient. Retention is
not the root cause of the gender gap; it is the
lower reading and behavior marks of boys lead-
ing to retention that depress their test scores,
not retention itself. Retention is an administra-
tive response to unsatisfactory classroom per-
formance.
The gender gap in retention rates follows
the same trend as the gender gap in test scores
(see Table 4). At the end of Year 1, the gender
difference in retention rates is 8.2 percent for
subsidy children and 0.6 percent for those not
on subsidy, and at the end of Year 2, it is still siz-
able (5.7 percent versus 0.6 percent). These
retention figures parallel the large gender gap
in test scores that emerges in the first two years
and then continues. By the end of Year 5, the
gender gap in retention rates has grown to
16.7 percent among children on subsidy,
whereas the gap among nonsubsidy students is
negligible (1.8 percent).
A RICHER PICTURE
The multivariate model does a good job of illus-
trating how the female advantage among sub-
sidy students in parental expectations, reading

Table 3. Gender Gap in CAT Reading Scores over the First Five Years of School, by Meal-
Subsidy Status (N = 392)a

Meal Subsidy (n = 272) No Meal Subsidy (n = 120)

CAT Reading Comprehension Male Female Gap Male Female Gap

Fall, Year 1 274.0 273.1 -0.9 295.4 292.2 -3.2

Spring, Year 1 331.2 336.5 5.3 358.3 361.6 3.3
Spring, Year 2 364.2 387.6 23.4* 410.7 404.8 -5.9
Spring, Year 3 395.4 409.6 14.2* 451.3 454.2 2.9
Spring, Year 4 432.1 455.8 23.7* 495.1 490.9 -4.2
Spring, Year 5 463.0 480.3 17.3* 536.2 530.2 -6.0

aRequiring six annual test scores reduces the case base to 392, different from the analysis sample.
*p < .05.
Early Schooling 125

Table 4. Gender Gap in Retention Rates over the First Five Years of School, by Meal-Subsidy
Status (N = 403)

Meal Subsidy (n = 277) No Meal Subsidy (n = 127)

Male Female Gap Male Female Gap

Year of First Retention (%)

Year 1 25.2 17.0 8.2 5.9 5.3 0.6
Year 2 16.3 10.6 5.7 5.9 5.3 0.6
Year 3 10.4 8.5 1.9 2.0 2.6 -0.6
Year 4 5.9 3.5 2.4 2.0 2.6 -0.6
Year 5 1.5 2.8 -1.3 2.0 0.0 2.0
Cumulative Retention Rate
Through Year 5 59.3 42.6 16.7 17.6 15.8 1.8

aRequiring six annual test scores reduces the case base to 392, different from the analysis sample.
*p < .05.

marks, classroom behavior, and retention
together predict higher reading achievement
scores for girls over the first five years of ele-
mentary school. This bare-bones portrait can
be considerably enhanced by descriptive data
that are available from the BSS. As the model
demonstrates, classroom behavior (classroom
fit) is at the heart of the issue.
The Teacher and Student Fit
No doubt boys’ low behavioral ratings reflect
real differences in how the two sexes behave in
school, but part of this poor “fit” may also
come from teachers’ bias. Most studies of
teachers’ bias have focused on differences in
students’ social class or race, rather than on
gender (see Alexander, Entwisle, and
Thompson 1987), but the margin in conduct
marks favoring girls over boys appears in almost
every BSS school irrespective of SES or race.
Hinshaw (1992) suggested that gender bias
may vary from teacher to teacher. If bias springs
from personal sources, gender favoritism
should vary from teacher to teacher. To test this
idea, earlier we took a “projective” approach
and asked teachers in Year 4 to name students
they would pick to carry out nonacademic tasks
(Entwisle et al. 1997). Each teacher named
three students whom she “could or would rely
on to help” with each of five tasks, such as tak-
ing notes to the office, passing out papers,
cleaning chalkboards, helping with a television
or other equipment, and so on. On this mea-
sure of gender preference, which is at least par-
tially independent of academics, the teachers’
choices were strongly imbalanced. The vast
majority of teachers (72 percent) selected more
girl than boy helpers, 26 percent selected more
boy helpers, and only 2 percent selected an
equal number of boy and girl helpers. (Note
that tasks like cleaning chalkboards or moving
equipment are not female sex typical.) These
preferences matter because girls in classes
where teachers preferred girl helpers gained
more on standardized tests over the fourth year
than did boys (39 versus 32 points, p = .086),
with race, meal subsidy, parent’s education,
parent’s estimate of student’s ability, parent’s
expectation of student’s mark, family configu-
ration, school segregation status, and school-
level parent education all controlled. In classes
where teachers preferred boy helpers (a smaller
group), the difference favored boys but was not
significant (see Entwisle et al. 1997). Probably
when teachers favor one sex over the other,
they act in ways that encourage achievement
by children of that sex, such as by smiling at
them, encouraging them to answer, and
choosing them as helpers. In short, subtle kinds
of behavior by teachers could benefit girls more
than boys.
Parents and Student Fit
Parents generally expect girls to get better
marks than boys in reading (see, e.g.,
Entwisle and Baker 1983). When BSS children
begin the first grade, their parents expect
126
similar reading marks, but by the fourth
grade, the parents of children on subsidy
expect boys’ marks to be lower than girls’
(2.5 versus 2.8, where B = 3 and C = 2; see
Table 1), but parents of nonsubsidy boys do
not (3.2 versus 3.1). Expectations, which are
one component of parents’ psychological
support, thus favor girls among parents of
children who are on subsidy but not among
parents of children who are not on subsidy.
More subtle influences could be driven by
parents’ conceptions of the student role.
Boys’ gender roles are generally thought to
be less consistent with the student role than
are girls’ (see Brophy 1985 for a review),
especially among working-class families.
While both lower-class and middle-class boys
reject the “effeminate” boy image and/or the
boy with nonmasculine interests, middle-class
boys are more accepting than are lower-class
boys of the academically oriented boy (Hall
and Keith 1964; Pope 1953) even in the early
grades (see Hess 1970).
Two kinds of indirect evidence about role
conceptions suggest that the BSS boys on
subsidy (who grew up in the mid-1980s)
were encouraged at home to have more tra-
ditional sex-role ideas than were those not on
subsidy: (1) parents’ chore assignments and
(2) parents’ expectations for children’s future
jobs.
Attitudes about gender roles surface when
parents assign chores (Rogoff 2003). Lower-
income parents assign household chores to
sons and daughters in line with traditional sex
roles more often than do better-off parents
(Lackey 1989; White and Brinkerhoff 1981).
BSS data on chores suggest that parents of
children on subsidy treat sons in ways that are
more consistent with traditional ideas about
male sex roles than do better-off parents; for
example, parents of subsidy children assign
chores in meal preparation significantly more
often to girls than to boys, but better-off par-
ents do not. With regard to baby-sitting, at
age 8, only a small fraction of boys baby-sit,
but starting at age 11, boys on subsidy are
less likely than are better-off boys to baby-sit,
and by age 13, they are significantly less like-
ly to do so (54 percent versus 44 percent).
Parents’ sex-role expectations are also
revealed in parents’ views of children’s future
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
jobs (Barnett 1979; Maccoby and Jacklin
1974). Low-SES parents have more dis-
crepant goals for sons and daughters than do
higher SES parents. When BSS parents list the
jobs that they expect their children to have as
adults, the parents of both subsidy and non-
subsidy children expect their sons’ future jobs
to be almost the same in terms of sex typical-
ity. By contrast, for daughters, the parents of
nonsubsidy students expect jobs to be in
fields where about half the participants are
male, while the parents of subsidy students
expect the large majority of daughters’ jobs
to be stereotypically female.
These tendencies could be further reinforced
by fathers’ occupations. BSS fathers of children
on subsidy have a 10th-grade education, and
70 percent hold craft, transportation, or labor-
er jobs—fields in which only 10 percent of the
workers are women. The fathers of nonsubsidy
children, by contrast, have almost two years of
postsecondary education, and 42 percent work
in professional/technical or managerial jobs—
fields in which about half the workers are
women. Such differences in fathers’ jobs could
send different messages to sons about men’s
work and the relevance of school for their
future work.
All in all, the social climate and atmos-
phere of the home are probably more com-
patible with nonsubsidy boys’ fit to the stu-
dent role than are those of boys on subsidy.
Role fit, in turn, may be reflected in boys’
conduct and effort to conform to behavioral
standards in the classroom and in boys’ effort
to master subjects, such as reading. Students’
marks, sex-role expectations, and attitudes
toward the teacher, as well as parents’ atti-
tudes and teachers’ reactions, probably all
converge to shape the child’s fit to the stu-
dent role. Parents’ assignments of chores and
job hopes shape students’ sex-role standards,
and these sex-role standards influence the
“fit” of the student role. Low-SES parents’
emphasis on traditional male sex roles could
affect the classroom behavior of boys on sub-
sidy. Students’ marks, teachers’ expectations,
personal preferences of teachers, and teach-
ers’ returning the liking of students all
respond to students’ role fit. For example,
teachers’ personal preference for girls over
boys, as is apparent in the choice of class
Early Schooling
helpers, is probably influenced by students’
behavior in class. For all boys, the “fit” to the
student role is not as good as the fit for girls,
but for nonsubsidy boys, the fit is better than
it is for boys on subsidy.
Retention and other kinds of low tracking
are more common for boys on subsidy than
for the other subgroups. The poorer fit of
boys on subsidy into the student role, which
begins to manifest itself in the first grade and
worsens with time, is probably the major rea-
son for these boys’ higher retention rate or
placement in low tracks.
Retention is a handicap in terms of further
schooling for BSS students, and students on
subsidy pay a higher toll for retention than
other students do. At age 22, among
retainees who had been on subsidy, 44 per-
cent of the men and 52 percent of the
women were neither at work nor in school,
while among the nonsubsidy retainees, 21
percent of the men and 24 percent of the
women were not at work or in school.
Actually, being idle at age 22 is not unusual
for retainees who had been on subsidy; since
they had left high school, almost half the time
they had not been in school or at work, com-
pared to about one-fourth the time for other
retainees. Thus, low behavioral ratings and
low reading marks in the first grade elicit an
institutional reaction, namely, retention—
with profound implications. In the BSS, falling
into the retention track jeopardizes a child’s
chance to get any postsecondary education,
without which today’s workers are at a severe
disadvantage in the labor market. In 2000, for
example, close to one in five African
Americans with only a high school education
was unemployed (U.S. Census Bureau 2001,
Table 260). In addition, among workers with
a high school education or less, men’s wages
are falling (Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto
2005).
DISCUSSION
Although no national study in the United
States has yet directly linked school experi-
ence in the primary grades to educational
outcomes in young adulthood, Kerckhoff
(1993) reported such long-term ties in the
127
United Kingdom. Moreover, the BSS shows
that the gender and SES of first graders pre-
dict educational attainment at age 22
(Entwisle et al. 2005). The findings of these
and other studies suggest that taking chil-
dren’s early school experience into account
could improve our understanding of how dif-
ferences in gender and SES emerge in educa-
tional attainment, especially reading.
U.S. boys and girls generally start their for-
mal schooling together. However, concern
about boys’ schooling is now on the rise
because national data have increasingly
pointed to deficits in boys’ performance early
in school. In kindergarten, boys have poorer
reading skills than do girls (Tach and Farkas
2006; West, Denton, and Reaney 2001), and
boys’ basic reading skills, such as letter recog-
nition and sound-to-letter correspondences,
are lower than those of girls at the beginning
of the first grade (U.S. Department of
Education 2002: 125). By the fourth grade,
42 percent of boys, compared to 32 percent
of girls, are “below basic” in reading achieve-
ment (U.S. Department of Education 2001,
Table 7.1). Even more worrisome, 20.3 per-
cent of boys aged 6–8 are below the modal
grade for their age compared to 15.6 percent
of girls of that age, and by ages 10–11, this
gap is even larger (29.2 percent versus 21.7
percent) (see Hauser 2001:163). That boys
are below modal grade for age does not
reflect only retention rates—some children
start school later than do others—but statis-
tics on retention show that modal-age com-
parisons underestimate the gender gap. In
1995, for example, 11 percent of second-
grade boys versus 5 percent of second-grade
girls repeated a grade (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services 1997; see also
Jacob 2002).
Boys’ poorer performance in elementary
school has serious long-term implications.
Boys with low marks in the first grade are
twice as likely to drop out as are boys with
better marks, even when they have the same
standardized test scores (Ensminger and
Slusarcick 1992). Still more ominous is the
higher retention rate of boys. Retention pre-
dicts dropout (Alexander et al. 2003; Darling-
Hammond and Falk 1995; Reardon 1996),
and dropouts have lower lifetime earnings
128
and higher unemployment rates and incar-
ceration rates and are more dependent on
welfare (McDill, Natriello, and Pallas 1986;
Royce, Darlington, and Murray 1983).
In the BSS data, the male deficit in reading
skills can be traced to children on subsidy.
These children’s family backgrounds resemble
those of students in the lowest quartile of
national samples in which a similar male
deficit appears (Burbridge 1991b). In the BSS
panel, boys on subsidy came from families in
which the average parent had a 10th-grade
education, which is substantially below the
U.S. average. The strong correlation between
SES and children’s school achievement is
widely recognized (see, e.g., Haveman and
Wolfe 1994; Mayer 1997; U.S. Census Bureau
2003), but the interaction between SES and
gender has attracted much less attention.
The patterns laid bare in this article rein-
force thinking about the critical nature of the
first-grade transition. The retention rate tends
to be the highest in the first grade, which
then evolves here into the large gender gap
in reading comprehension at the end of Year
2. The consequences of a rough first-grade
transition in terms of test scores are delayed,
but the die is cast in the classroom activity of
Year 1, so the key time for intervention is in
Grade 1 or before.
Earlier, we speculated that classroom “fit”
responds to sex-role socialization and that
sex-role ideas could spring from sources as
diffuse as hearing about fathers’ and other
men’s jobs or from observing that mothers
are more involved with school than are
fathers (Lareau, 2002). Fit could respond
even more to direct sources, such as parents
encouraging boys to adopt traditional male
sex-role behaviors. Among higher-status par-
ents, male sex-role expectations were evolv-
ing away from traditional ideas even by the
early 1980s when the BSS panel members
were starting school. At that time, however,
traditional male sex-role expectations could
still be functional for men with blue-collar
jobs. The precipitous decline in manufactur-
ing and other blue-collar work since then,
however, makes such roles less functional and
schooling even more important for males
than was true at that time.
Most parents sense that their children’s
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
success early in school can depend on inter-
personal dynamics in the classroom. Lower-
SES parents, however, tend to convey mes-
sages to their children about behavior in class
that are vague and lacking in information
compared to the messages given by better-
off parents. For example, when Hess and
Shipman (1965: 877) asked mothers what
they would tell children who were starting
school, a higher-SES mother said: “First of all,
I would remind her that she was going to
school to learn, that her teacher would take
my place . . . and that any questions or prob-
lems that she might have she could consult
with her teacher for assistance.” In contrast, a
lower-SES mother said, “Well, John . . . You
must know how to behave the first day at
school. You should be a good boy and should
do just what the teacher tells you to do.” The
second mother described the student role as
passive and compliant. Her message was
vague and lacked information about how to
deal with problems at school except by pas-
sive compliance.
Six year olds can be noisy and inattentive,
but most do not misbehave deliberately. On
this account, it is worrisome that gender, a
nonacademic characteristic, can be so conse-
quential for the reading skills of children from
lower-SES backgrounds. Just as many BSS
boys as girls say they like the teacher “a lot”
when they begin school. The first-grade
teachers, however, think that more than
twice as many of the boys on subsidy as the
girls (38 percent versus 17 percent) “need
improvement” in conduct in the first grade.
Teachers also rate boys as less attentive than
girls in the first grade and see the boys on
subsidy as becoming more inattentive the
longer they are in school. Deportment, work
habits, and other personal characteristics are
“noncognitive” and so are seldom seen as a
major issue in improving school achievement.
Even so, in the first grade, inattentive children
do not learn as much as do their more order-
ly peers. It is dangerous, however, to link the
noncognitive characteristics of any group
with their ascriptive characteristics. Layper-
sons and policy makers alike would properly
object if ethnicity were taken as the root
cause of low marks. Likewise, to observe that
boys on subsidy get lower marks in conduct
Early Schooling
and then to conclude that gender (an ascrip-
tive characteristic) is the basic reason why
these boys consistently make less progress
than girls in elementary school is dangerous.
The parallel between school inequity linked to
gender and school inequity linked to minori-
ty-group membership is obvious: Boys do get
lower marks than girls in elementary school,
but being male does not, by itself, “produce”
these low marks any more than ethnicity, by
itself, produces low marks. Our analyses sug-
gest that children’s adaptation to the class-
room, as shaped by teachers’ and parents’
views of children, undercuts the schooling of
boys on subsidy.
Part of the remedy could be for schooling
in the primary grades to be restructured to fit
the profiles of all children. As Kimmel (2000)
said, the facile “boys will be boys” model
needs to be challenged. If teachers find boys’
conduct to be problematic or the conduct of
poor children of both sexes to be more prob-
lematic than that of better-off children, as
they seem to, these issues flag problems that
need solutions.
One change that may be effective address-
es both classroom behavior and sex-role
issues: recruit more male teachers for the ear-
liest grades, especially in schools where many
students come from disadvantaged families.
(Of the BSS teachers, none in the first grade
and 2 percent in the second grade are men.)
Nationally, the proportion of male teachers in
elementary schools has been dropping (from
16 percent in 1982 to 14 percent in 2003; see
U.S. Census Bureau 2004–05, Table 238), and
these male teachers are concentrated in the
upper, rather than the lower, grades. Boys’
associating closely with a teacher who is an
example of a white-collar man may, in itself,
help reinforce male sex-role standards that
are more consistent with the student role.
Also, we suspect that male teachers may
interact with boys differently from female
teachers and be more tolerant of restlessness,
moving about, noise levels, boisterousness,
and the like (see Dee 2005).
Another change, and one relatively easy to
make, is in class schedules. In the United
States, recess policies vary widely, but in the
early grades, recess time is declining
(Pellegrini and Bohn 2005). Boys would prob-
129
ably benefit from more, rather than less,
recess time because children, especially boys,
are more attentive after recess than before,
whether breaks are outdoors or indoors, are
short or long (Pellegrini et al. 2002). Inner-
city boys, especially, use their facility with
games (ball games and chase and jumping
games) as a way to adjust to early schooling.
Their success in games at recess predicts bet-
ter adjustment in the classroom. Curiously,
students in secondary schools have 5–10
minute breaks every hour to move from one
classroom to another, but frequent breaks are
not the rule in elementary school.
Still another approach would be to give
disadvantaged children more explicit instruc-
tion and practice in classroom behavior early
in the first grade or in kindergarten. In a time-
use study, Berkeley (1978) showed that
kindergarten teachers in a suburban middle-
SES school spent more time teaching class
routines—not calling out and lining up prop-
erly—than did teachers in a working-class or
inner-city school. Teachers in the latter
schools seemed less aware of the need to
accustom children to classroom routines.
Gender differences that are prejudicial to
males no doubt have been downplayed
because of the zeitgeist that prevailed
through most of the 20th century, when men
with a minimal education could obtain good
jobs in mines, factories, construction, and the
skilled trades. Now, however, the labor mar-
ket increasingly seeks workers with more
schooling, and women have responded more
than have men. In 1970, the ratio of college
enrollments favored men by a wide margin
(59 to 41), but now the ratio favors women
(54 to 46) (Riordan 2003). In framing policy,
however, it is important to acknowledge that
the roots of this gender imbalance in higher
education extend back to the early grades
(Bellisimo et al. 1995; Cameron and Wilson
1990; Entwisle et al. 2005). Moreover, while
dropout issues are often cast in terms of sec-
ondary school structure or organization, edu-
cational trajectories begin much earlier
(Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, and Maritato 1997;
Ensminger and Slusarcick 1992). A simple
logic and steadily mounting evidence suggest
that tackling the problems early in life that
lead to dropout and labor market disability
130 Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson

holds more promise (see Reynolds, Ou, and
Topitzes 2004).
NOTE
1. At the suggestion of a reviewer, we esti-
mated an alternative model with a combined
measure of classroom behavior entered prior
to reading mark and parental support, even
though time ordering compels the order of
variables in the original model. The alterna-
tive model shows, as the reviewer suspected,
a larger coefficient for classroom behavior. In
fact, by itself, this coefficient is large enough
to explain the gender gap.

APPENDIX

Individual Child and Family Variables

Race. Race is 0 for white, 1 for African American.
Sex. Sex is 0 for boys, 1 for girls.
Meal-subsidy status. Data on child's eligibility for free or reduced-price meals came from
school records. Children from families with incomes that were less than 1.85 times the feder-
al poverty level were eligible for subsidies.
Family SES composite. Family SES is the average of five z-scores: mother’s and father’s edu-
cational and occupational levels as obtained from the parent questionnaires and whether or
not the student qualified for a federal meal subsidy, also obtained from school records. The
average education of the mothers (of 95 percent of the students) was 11.7 years and of the
fathers (of 67 percent of the students), 12.2 years. For SES, there was 99.5 percent coverage,
with all but 0.5 percent of the students providing data for at least one component. The alpha
reliability (5 items) is .86 and ranges from .74 to .84 for three items, available for over 95 per-
cent of the sample.
Parent's psychological support. Each year before the first report card, a parent (mostly the
mother) guessed the child's first marks in reading and math (4 for excellent, 3 for good, 2 for
satisfactory, and 1 for unsatisfactory) and how far the child would go in school (1 for not fin-
ish high school, 2 for finish high school, 3 for 1–2 years of college, 4 for finish 4 years of col-
lege, and 5 for more than college). Parent’s psychological support is the mean of these three
z-scores.
Parents’ occupational aspirations for the student. Beginning in Year 1, the parents were asked:
“What kind of occupation or job would you like your child to have when he [or she] grows
up?” and “What kind of job do you expect him [or her] to get?” These occupational aspira-
tions and expectations were assigned sex-typicality ratings (percentage of female job incum-
bents) derived from the job titles of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor
1984). Thus, a rating of 80 percent would be a job in which 80 percent of the workers are
female.
Home chores. In Years 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9, parents were asked about their children's chores:
makes own bed, helps with meals, runs errands to store, baby-sits younger children, mows the
grass, washes the car, and helps with other housecleaning (vacuuming, sweeping, and so
forth).
California Achievement Test scores (CAT). Children's CAT Reading Comprehension scores
(Form C) in October and May of each school year came from the school records. See California
Achievement Test (1979).
Marks. Students’ marks in reading, obtained from report cards, were coded 4 for excellent,
3 for good, 2 for satisfactory, and 1 for unsatisfactory.
Classroom behavior ratings. The student’s classroom behavior rating for each quarter is the

continued
Early Schooling 131

APPENDIX CONTINUED

mean of at least 4 of 6 possible ratings—conduct, effort, pays attention, class participation,

completes assignments, and works independently, coded 2 for satisfactory and 1 for needs
improvement. The yearly rating is the mean of the quarterly ratings. Internal reliability
(Cronbach’s alpha) for the classroom behavior composite is .92 for both Years 2 and 4.
Satisfaction with teacher. Beginning in the first grade, students were asked: “Do you like
your teacher a lot, think he [or she] is just OK, or not like him [or her] much at all?” as adapt-
ed from a 4-item School Satisfaction Scale developed from the Epstein and McPartland (1977)
Quality of School Life Scale.

School Tracking Variables

Reading groups. Teachers reported reading-group placements in the fall and spring of
Grades 1 and 2. Teachers reported the number of groups in a class, and to make comparisons
across classrooms with a different number of reading groups, students were ranked as follows:
1 = lowest group, 2 = intermediate-level group, or 3 = highest-level group. The reading-group
level for Grade 2 is available only for students who did not repeat Grade 1.
Reading instructional level. Report cards show the instructional level of the reader used by
the student every quarter.
Retention. Grade retention (from school records) was coded 1 for retained and 0 for pro-
moted. A cumulative measure for Grades 1 through 5 was 1 for retained at least once and 0
for never retained. Retention rates were nearly 17 percent in Grade 1 and 10 percent in Grade
2, with 37 percent the cumulative rate through Grade 5.

Teacher Variables
Gender bias in classroom chore assignment. In Year 4, the teachers were asked to name three
students in their class “on whom you could or would rely to help” with each of five classroom
chores: take notes to the office; pass out or collect papers; clean chalkboards, put up posters,
and fix bulletin boards; help with a television or other equipment; escort visitors around the
school. The students’ names were categorized by gender, and the total number of girls and
boys who were chosen as helpers was tallied for each teacher.

Attrition
Table A2 compares the analysis sample (N = 403) to the original random sample (N = 790).
After five years, the sample included more African Americans (62 percent), but otherwise the
composition of the two samples was similar; for instance, beginning test scores in verbal com-
prehension were 281 and 280 in the two samples, average reading marks were also close
(about 1.9 or just under a C average), retention rates matched well (37 percent versus 40 per-
cent), and demographic characteristics (except for race) were close.
Table A1. Definitions of Variables, Means, and Standard Deviations of the Primary Variables Used in the Regression Analysis (N = 403)
132

Variable Mean (SD) Description

Background Characteristics
Student’s gender .54 (.50) 1 = Female, 0 = Male
Student’s race .62 (.49) 1 = African American, 0 = white

Family Socioeconomic Status Composite -.13 (.74) Average of both parents’ educational level, a ranking of mother’s and father’s
occupational status (TSEI2; see Featherman and Stevens 1982), and participa-
tion in the federal meal-subsidy program (all measures converted to z-scores)

Proportion on Meal Subsidy .68 (.47) Participation in the federal meal-subsidy program
0 = No subsidy, 1 = Meal subsidy
Meal Subsidy
Mother’s years of education 10.75 (1.98) Socioeconomic Characteristics of Families, by Meal-Subsidy Status
Father’s years of education 10.95 (1.97) *Examples of TSEI2 job status scores:
Mother’s TSEI2 job status* 25.90 (9.92) 25.23 Typist, 25.37 Salesclerk
Father’s TSEI2 job status* 25.37 (9.64) 23.96 Bartender, 24.47 Machinist
Proportion resident father .43 (.50)
No Meal Subsidy
Mother’s years of education 13.29 (2.65)
Father’s years of education 13.28 (2.82)
Mother’s TSEI2 job status* 41.23 (17.95) 41.58 Sales manager; 42.69 Photographer
Father’s TSEI2 job status* 38.98 (19.51) 38.43 Building managers; 39.20 Radiology technicians; 39.43 Surveyors
Proportion resident father .79 (.41)

Parental Support
Reading mark expectations 2.69 (.78) Parent’s expectations for student’s reading and math marks, beginning of Grade 1:
Math mark expectations 2.67 (.76) 1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = satisfactory, 3 = good, 4 = excellent

Educational Expectations 3.04 (1.13) Parent’s expectations for student’s educational attainment:
1 = not finish high school, 2 = finish high school, 3 = 1–2 years of college,
4 = 4 years of college, 5 = > 4 years of college

Parental Support Index -.01 (.78) Composite is mean of z-scores for parent’s expectations for student’s reading and
math marks and educational attainment
continued
Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson
Table A1. Continued

Variable Mean (SD) Description

Student Achievement
CAT reading score, Fall of Grade 1 279.69 (40.00) California Achievement Test, Form C, Reading Comprehension, scale scores,
Beginning of Grade 1 (Fall 1982)
Early Schooling

CAT Reading Score, Spring of Year 5 486.85 (73.14) California Achievement Test, Form C, Reading Comprehension, scale scores,
End of Year 5 (Spring 1987)

Reading Mark, Grade 1, Quarter 4 2.25 (.93) Reading of students in Grade 1, quarter 4 (spring 1983):
1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = satisfactory, 3 = good, 4 = excellent

Retention, Years 1–5 .40 (.49) Any retention in first 5 years of school; from school records, coded:
0 = not retained
1 = Retained
Student Classroom Behavior Ratings
Beginning Year 2 (Quarter 1)
Conduct 1.74 (.44) Classroom Behavior ratings from report cards, each category coded
Effort 1.74 (.44) 1 = needs improvement, 2 = unsatisfactory
Attention 1.66 (.47)
Class participation 1.78 (.41) A Classroom Behavior rating is created for each quarter of Years 2 and 4 by taking
Completes assignments 1.74 (.44) the mean of at least 4 of the 6 possible ratings (e.g., conduct, effort) recorded
Works independently 1.62 (.49) quarterly.

Beginning Year 4 (Quarter 1)

Conduct 1.72 (.45)
Effort 1.66 (.48)
Attention 1.61 (.49)
Class participation 1.73 (.45)
Completes assignments 1.75 (.43)
Works independently 1.64 (.48)

Classroom Behavior Composite, Year 2 1.73 (.30) A Classroom Behavior Composite rating for each year was constructed by taking
the mean of the available quarterly ratings.
Classroom Behavior Composite, Year 4 1.70 (.30) (alpha reliability is .92 for both years)
133
134 Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson

Table A2. Attrition Analysis: Characteristics of Original BSS Sample and OLS Regression
Sample

Original Sample Regression Sample

(N = 790) (N = 403)

Characteristic Mean SD Mean SD

Proportion Female .51 .50 .54 .50
Proportion African American .55 .50 .62 .49
Family SES Index -.04 .80 -.13 .74
Mother’s Years of Education 11.7 2.55 11.6 2.50
Proportion on Meal Subsidy .66 .47 .68 .47
Proportion Two-Parent Family .56 .50 .55 .50
Reading CAT, Beginning Grade 1 281 40.8 280 40.0
Math CAT, Beginning Grade 1 292 31.9 293 31.0
Reading Mark, Beginning Grade 1 1.88 .71 1.85 .70
Proportion Retained in Grade, Yrs 1-5 .37 .48 .40 .49

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138 Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson

Doris R. Entwisle, Ph.D., is Research Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University. Her main area
of interest is the sociology of human development over the life course, with an emphasis on issues
of inequality. Her current research concerns the ways in which members of the Beginning School
Study (BSS) panel make the transition to adulthood in the third decade of life. Her book (with Karl
L. Alexander and Linda S. Olson), Children, Schools, and Inequality (Westview-Perseus, 1977)
explores the ways in which social structure shapes the paths that children take through elementary
school.

Karl L. Alexander, Ph.D., is John Dewey Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of
Sociology, Johns Hopkins University. Since 1982, he and Doris Entwisle have been directing the BSS,
an ongoing long-term study of youth development. His interests center on schools and problems of
educational stratification that can be addressed via organizational, social-psychological, and life-
course perspectives. With Doris Entwisle and Susan Dauber, he published a revised, updated ver-
sion of their 1994 evaluation of grade retention, On the Success of Failure (Cambridge University
Press, 2003). He is working on several projects that examine the lasting imprint of early home and
schooling experiences on the transition to adulthood.

Linda S. Olson, MA, is Associate Research Scientist, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins
University. She has been associated with the BSS for the past 20 years. Her interests center on sta-
tistical modeling and the effects of social structure on schooling outcomes.

This research was supported by Grant 200300057 from the Spencer Foundation and a Mellon
Fellowship No. 30600638 to Doris R. Entwisle. Address correspondence to Doris R. Entwisle,
Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Merganthaler 530, 3400 North Charles Street,
Baltimore, MD 21218; e-mail: entwisle@jhu.edu.