At #SEA2019, @ShellyJLundberg gives a great keynote on gender education gaps. What's wrong with boys? They underperform in education. Some argue it's noncognitive skills bc of greater male vulnerability to environment; Shelly says no. She says it's gender norm conformance! 1/n

More so than girls, boys want more ed than they expect to get. Educ aspirations are important but not much affected by educ performance or parents aspirations for you. 2/n

Shelly cites literature from sociology showing that masculine identity norms are more oppositional, while norms for girls comport better with an educational setting. 3/n

Note that when they are troubled, boys are more likely to act out while girls are more likely to be depressed - hence different levels, and correlates, of "bad behavior" for boys vs girls. 4/n

Why in educ has econ focused less on boys' underachievement than girls' challenges in STEM? Because econ takes men as the default. 5/n

Shelly gave a great talk, outlining what we know / don't know. I loved that ending point. I asked - what's our agenda for improving econ research by making men not be the default? She said: we need more women in econ!
Thank you, @ShellyJLundberg, for your voice & leadership. n/n