Who Is a Good Student?

Abstract

The junior middle school phase is one in which students first come into formal contact with science subjects and is a key period in the formation of their attitudes toward the sciences. Any setback in science studies in this period inevitably affects the students' studies in the senior middle school phase and even their future choice of specializations and the direction of their career development. Thus science education during the junior middle school phase is of the utmost importance for the students' growth. Studies by scholars abroad show that the great majority of girls have the same intelligence and ambitions as boys when they enter school, but by the time they graduate from junior and senior middle schools they have much less confidence in their abilities and their self-esteem has conspicuously declined. There is also a big difference between boys and girls in terms of their choice of advancement to higher schools, and a relatively small proportion of girls choose to take science courses in senior middle school. In terms of choice of vocations, most girls remain stuck in the narrow field of traditional occupations for females, such as nursing, health care, and secretarial work, and display a clear tendency toward job gender patternization. The rate of school dropouts and discontinued schooling is much higher among girls than boys.1 Studies by scholars in China show that stereotyped gender impressions among teachers leads to incorrect conduct in education and teaching. For instance, teachers believe that boys are more clever. They make different dispositions for girls' and boys' learning activities, and lavish more attention on boys. Such different feedback to learning information [sic] from boys and girls widens the difference between students of different genders.2