Are Alpha Boys In Trouble?

Business Week thinks so -- see The Gender Gap -- and as the mother of a boy, I'm interested to read about this, still I wonder if it's not one of those alarmists articles in the "statistics prove ..." category. I think you can use statistics to prove just about anything.

Listen to this:

The gender gap also has roots in the expectation gap. In the 1970s, boys were far more likely to anticipate getting a college degree -- with girls firmly entrenched in the cheerleader role. Today, girls' expectations are ballooning, while boys' are plummeting. There's even a sense, including among the most privileged families, that today's boys are a sort of payback generation -- the one that has to compensate for the advantages given to males in the past. In fact, the new equality is often perceived as a loss by many boys who expected to be on top. "My friends in high school, they just didn't see the value of college, they just didn't care enough," says New York University sophomore Joe Clabby. Only half his friends from his high school group in New Jersey went on to college.: