Why girls should be less compliant, and boys deserve better grades: The diligence fallacy in education (and self-regulation research)

Solving the conflict between short-term impulses and long-term goals in favor of the latter is considered crucial for learning. This self-control account has also been used to explain why girls outperform boys. We propose a fundamentally different view on the gender gap in academic achievement and the typical conflicts that students face, by suggesting that what is considered self-regulation is an instance of external regulation. Because of pervasive gender roles, girls relative to boys behave more compliantly in schools. Teachers, in turn, reward girls’ “good student” behavior and punish boys’ “rebellious” behavior via grading irrespective of students’ substantial competencies. Using population data from Luxembourgish ninth-graders, we show that, across subjects, this diligence fallacy in grades versus standardized achievement test scores is linked to students’ gender and self-reported conscientiousness – as prototypical instance of good student behavior. In line with our loss-of-control hypothesis, girls also reported a higher school anxiety than boys. Hence, whereas the diligence explanation suggests a just world in which girls’ advantage is merited, our re-interpretation calls for a different education practice that acknowledges boys’ competencies despite their ”misbehavior” and does not teach to girls that they are praised for being nice instead of smart.