Christina Hoff Sommers – författare

Women have achieved or exceeded parity with men in most academic fields but continue to be outnumbered in the physical sciences, engineering, and math. For many equity activists, this imbalance constitutes a serious problem, even a "crisis," necessitating federal oversight to prevent gender bias in higher education and scientific industries. Congress, the Obama administration, and many science and education leaders are considering dramatic measures to improve women's prospects in the sciences. But what if claims of gender bias have been exaggerated? In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Promise of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, an influential study suggesting that women face a hostile environment in the laboratory. The NAS report dismissed the possibility that gender disparities in scientific fields might be attributable to biological differences and called for immediate remedial action in education, government, and business. This volume examines the research behind the NAS's claims and presents a more balanced analysis of the gender gap.Scientific research on the relationship between gender and vocation is complex, vibrant, and full of reasonable disagreements. Some scholars agree that discrimination is the best explanation for the current configuration of men and women in science, but others, perhaps a majority, suggest that biology and considered preference explain why men and women follow different career paths. The Science on Women and Science is a lively, readable, and balanced collection of articles by distinguished scholars from sides of an often-contentious debate.

An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic—now more relevant than ever—argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs.Girls and women were once second-class citizens in the nation’s schools. Americans responded with concerted efforts to give girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Now, after two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that it’s time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help. Called “provocative and controversial...impassioned and articulate” (The Christian Science Monitor), this edition of The War Against Boys offers a new preface and six radically revised chapters, plus updates on the current status of boys throughout the book. Sommers argues that the problem of male underachievement is persistent and worsening. Among the new topics Sommers tackles: how the war against boys is harming our economic future, and how boy-averse trends such as the decline of recess and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies have turned our schools into hostile environments for boys. As our schools become more feelings-centered, risk-averse, competition-free, and sedentary, they move further and further from the characteristic needs of boys. She offers realistic, achievable solutions to these problems that include boy-friendly pedagogy, character and vocational education, and the choice of single-sex classrooms. The War Against Boys is an incisive, rigorous, and heartfelt argument in favor of recognizing and confronting a new reality: boys are languishing in education and the price of continued neglect is economically and socially prohibitive.