AAUW. Where the Girls Are: The Facts about Gender Equity in Education

2008, 2010 editions

Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education
presents a comprehensive look at girls’ educational achievement during the past 35 years, paying special attention to the relationship between girls’ and boys’ progress. Analyses of results from national standardized tests, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the SAT and ACT college entrance examinations, as well as other measures of educational achievement, provide an overall picture of trends in gender equity from elementary school to college and beyond.

AAUW. Why So Few: Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics.
In an era when women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law and business, why are there so few women scientists and engineers? A new research report by AAUW presents compelling evidence that can help to explain this puzzle. Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers – including stereotypes, gender bias and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities – that continue to block women’s participation and progress in science, technology, engineering, and math. The report also includes up to date statistics on girls' and women's achievement and participation in these areas and offers new ideas for what each of us can do to more fully open scientific and engineering fields to girls and women.

AAUW Educational Foundation. Beyond Gender Wars: A Conversation About Girls, Boys, and Education
This report summarizes the key insights that emerged from the conversation among researchers and the public forum at the “Beyond the Gender Wars” conference. In the report, participants share their visions of what would constitute a truly equitable and effective education for girls and boys, their understanding of how gender interacts with other aspects of students’ identities, their responses to and revisions of the gender wars debate, and their recommended priorities for achieving better education for boys and girls.

AAUW Educational Foundation. Gender Gaps: Where Our Schools Still Fail Our Children
"Gender Gaps" is an update to "How Schools Shortchange Girls," the report that drew national attention to the unequal treatment of girls in America's schools. The AAUW sees how girls are faring after five years of educational reform, explores lingering problems, and shows why teachers need to address the different needs of girls and boys, rather than simply giving them an identical education. 10 charts, 10 tables.

AAUW Education Foundation. Growing Smart: What’s Working for Girls in Schools
Comprehensive academic review of more than 500 reports identifies approaches that promote girls' achievement and healthy development. Culturally conscious report urges experimentation with single-sex programs, cooperative learning, and other nontraditional approaches.

AAUW Educational Foundation. Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing and Sexual Harassment in School
One student in five fears being hurt or bothered in school; four students in five personally experience sexual harassment. These are among the findings of this nationally representative survey of 2,064 eighth- through eleventh- graders. The report investigates sexual harassment in public schools, comparing the findings with AAUW's original survey in 1993 and exploring differences in responses by gender, race/ethnicity, grade level, and area (urban or suburban/rural).

AAUW Educational Foundation and Wellesley College. How Schools Shortchange Girls
A startling examination of how girls are disadvantaged in U.S. public schools. Includes recommendations for educators and policy-makers as well as concrete strategies for change.

American Psychological Association. Developing Adolescents: A Reference for Professionals
Despite the negative portrayals that sometimes seem so prevalent – and the negative attitudes about adolescents that they support – the picture of adolescents today is largely a very positive one. Professionals can play an important role in shifting perceptions of adolescents to the positive. The truth is that adolescents, despite occasional or numerous protests, need adults and want them to be part of their lives, recognizing that they can nurture, teach, guide, and protect them on a journey to adulthood. This reference guide shows how adults can make that connection with adolescents.

Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2008 Kids Count Data Book: State Profiles of Child Well-Being.This 19th annual KIDS COUNT Data Book provides national and state-by-state information and statistical trends on the conditions of America’s children and families. This year, the KIDS COUNT Data Book essay, A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform, looks at the nearly 100,000 youth confined to juvenile facilities on any given night in the United States, and what can be done to reduce unnecessary and inappropriate detention and incarceration and increase opportunities for positive youth development and community safety.

Dispelling the Myths About Tobacco: A Health Care Provider’s Toolkit for Reducing Tobacco Use Among Women
This crucial report, the first in more than 20 years to focus on the issue of women and tobacco use, concludes that the single greatest preventable threat to health, safety, and welfare of women around the world is tobacco.

Domestic Abuse in Maine Data Project II 1996-1999
This volume of the Data Project, which covers the period 1996-1999, represents the second effort by the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence to gather data and assess the impact of domestic abuse on Maine’s citizens. Compiled by examining court records, police files, and independent reports, and by interviewing advocates, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement and medical personnel, state officials, social workers, and researchers, it builds on earlier data. 

Ginorio, Angela and Huston, Michelle. ¡Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can Latinas in School – 00.105
This paper explores the experiences of Latinas in the United States educational system. We utilize the concept of “possible selves” to investigate the lives of Latinas in school, at home, and with their peers. Communities formed by communities’ families, peers and schools provide a social context in which possible selves are imagined and changed over time. We suggest that elements in each of these social contexts can be education-encouraging and dismissive. This is the focus of much of the report.

Girls’ Rights survey conducted for Girls Incorporated
The survey is intended to explore perceptions about girls’ rights and the barriers girls may face in asserting these rights This survey is a part of Girls Incorporated’s Girls’ Rights Campaign and highlights Girls Inc.’s Girls’ Bill of Rights. Topics covered in the survey include attitudes towards society’s expectations for girls and for boys, important life goals for girls and boys, students’ lives today, and familiarity with Girls Incorporated.

Girls Incorporated. The Supergirl Dilemma: Girls Grapple with the Mounting Pressure of Expectations (2006) 2 copies
The study was designed to give voice to girls-their opinions, aspirations, and fears. It also relays important information on how gender stereotypes affect boys and how girls, boys and adults view the stereotypes that confront girls and boys. Some key findings include The Supergirl Phenonmenon; Girls have Big Aspirations, but Worries Loom Large; Support Systems Bolster Girls’ Ability to Endure Stresses and to Believe They Can Achieve Their Aspirations, Girls and Boys Face Different Stereotypes and Concerns, and Superwoman Worry for Supergirls.

Haag, Pamela. Voices of a Generation. AAUW Educational Foundation
What would girls write about their lives that they would not say out loud to their parents, teachers, or friends? Voices of a Generation begins to answer this question. It draws on an unprecedented, unique collection of more than 2,000 responses to six questions from girls age 12-16, who participated in more than 50 daylong "Sister-to-Sister" summits held in 1997-98 nationwide, from Cobb County, Georgia to Kalispell, Montana, inner city Detroit to Gilroy, California. Girls were asked to identify the major issues and struggles in their lives, to speculate on how their schools could help them, to talk about what they would like to tell other girls--and what they would like to know from other girls. Their passionate, candid, plain-spoken responses cover a wide range of subjects--from sex, pregnancy, body image, and sexual harassment to peer pressure, prejudice, drugs, loneliness, sisterhood, and more. Together they constitute an intimate, unflinching portrait of girls' lives--told in their own terms.

Landstedt, Evelina. Life Circumstances and Adolescent Mental Health: Perceptions, associations and a gender analysis
In Landstedt's Doctoral thesis, factors and circumstances that relate to adolescent mental health were applied to a gender analysis to better understand the relationships between life circumstances and the gendered patterning of mental health among young people. The population was 16-19 year old Swedish students. The findings were astounding, the mental health problems of perceived stress, psychological distress and deliberate self-harm were twice as common among girls as boys. Landstedt looks at what factors influenced this finding.

 Maine Boys Network. The Gender Divide in Academic Engagement: Perspectives from Maine Boys and Young Men. 2008.
In this Report, results from surveys given to young males are looked at and the usage of these findings in the future of education and development is discussed. The difference in how young males and females feel about school and participate in school is also discussed.

Maine Children's Alliance. Maine Kids Count 2008 Data Book –
The Maine Children's Alliance is part of the national KIDS COUNT network, a state-by-state effort to track the status of children across the country. This reference provides the most up-to-date data on the social, economic, physical and educational well-being of children in Maine.

Maine’s Future: A Report on the Status of Young Women in Maine
This report, published by the Girl Scouts of Kennebec Council, examines the lives of girls in Maine from multiple perspectives. It delves into their health (“Bodies, Minds and Souls”) , their education (“Capacity, Performance and Attachment”) and their social status (“Socioeconomic Environment, Relationships and Civic Engagement”).

Office of Substance Abuse. MYDAUS: Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey
This technical report for 2002 illustrates the prevalence of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; risk and preventative measures; prohibited behaviors; and pro-social behaviors among students in the state of Maine.

Phillips, Lynn. The Girls Report: What We Know and Need to Know About Growing Up Female
Adolescence can be both a rich and challenging time for girls as they confront new ideas, explore life's possibilities and navigate through the stormy seas of physical, social, and emotional changes. How are girls meeting these challenges? The research and policy studies reviewed and analyzed for this report provide a mixed picture of progress and continuing struggles. The Girls Report maps theoretical debates, counters popular myths with recent research findings, and highlights successful programs serving diverse populations. Chapters on education, health, violence, sexuality, and economic realties conclude with clear recommendations for action. The report also outlines specific actions that individuals and groups, including parents, teachers, policy makers and funders, can take to support girls. In The Girls Report, girls speak to their own situations and their own words suggest some solutions.

Pohlmann, Lisa, Skeek Frazee and Merril Cousin. Information Guide For Abused Women In Maine
The Information Guide has a special purpose: to reach women who live far away from our centers. However, it is a valuable resource to all battered women. It is intended to give battered women “ideas, strength and strategies” to live lives free from violence.

Preventing Girls’ Aggression and Violence: A Report of The Girls and Violence Talk Force
In 1999, the Governor’s Prevention Partnership convened The Girls and Violence TaskForce, a group of prevention and juvenile justice practitioners, educators, researchers, and other experts, who spent several years researching the issue of girls and violence. They discovered that girls’ violence develops within, and is surreounded by, unique circumstances and factors; that the underlying reasons for girls’ violent offending – their pathways to violence- are different from boys’; and that girls’ experience of and expression of violence are also unique. They discovered that strategies to prevent girls’ violence must be grounded in what girls value – relationships and connections, and that if they are not, they will fail. This report highlights the work of the Girls and Violence Task Force.

U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services. Child Health USA 2010.
This annual statistical report highlights the health status and service needs of America's children. It provides data for target populations of Title V funding, which includes infants, children, adolescents, children with special health care needs, and women of childbearing age. The report includes tables, figures, and references.

U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services. Women's Health USA 2010.
This data book is the ninth edition of the annual report on women’s health in the United States. It presents current and historical data on health issues women in the United States face; highlights racial/ethnic, sex/gender, and socioeconomic disparities to health care; and discusses the health status of women, utilization of health services, and current trends in women’s health. The data book includes tables, figures, and references.

Women's Resource Center: University of Maine. Girls will be Girls? Executive Summary
The Girlfighting Project was designed to embrace the complexity of girls’ lives by integrating analysis of girls’ voice from 13 different research studies and ongoing reflections of Maine girls and women, as well as insights from projects and organizations directly working with Maine girls. The Women’s Resource Center organized groups of academics and practitioners, as well as girls themselves, to address questions posed them and tap into their experiences with and understandings of girlfighting behavior…We sponsored the Girls Will be Girls? conference, which brought us together with nationally known scholars of girls’ development to grapple with the perils and possibilities of growing up female in the new millennium.