The Australian Men’s Health Forum and the University of Sydney Technology are partnering to run a focus group on men’s health next week and are seeking 12 participants.

A new study into weight stigma has found that men have been overlooked by researchers when examining their experiences of obesity.

Schools should broaden reading material to encourage a wider group of boys to enjoy the activity, a reading expert claims.

According to Education HQ, Dr Laura Scholes, a specialist on boys and reading from Queensland University of Technology, studied 15 boys aged 10-12 from working-class backgrounds in South East Queensland where unemployment was high and school completion low.  

This article by Dr Laura Scholes of Queensland University of Technology is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Year 3 reading outcomes of 2017 NAPLAN testing once again demonstrate a gender gap, with boys underachieving compared to girls. A focus on teaching for the test has not closed the gender gap and only reduced student motivation and well-being.

Men with a disability should be considered a priority group when it comes to forming policy around suicide prevention, according to a group of researchers and academics at Melbourne University.

Their recommendation comes as a result of a study into male suicide, which showed that those who reported a disability were more likely to have suicidal thoughts than other men.

Source:  UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESO) has published a policy paper on gender equality in education that warns “don’t forget the boys”.

Boys’ Education is a key men’s health issues as lower levels of education are linked to poorer health. Put another way, improving boys’ education, improves men’s health. 

According to UNESCO, boys are at greater risk of failing to progress and complete their secondary education in many countires. Moreover, boys perform increasingly less well in assessments of reading skills worldwide, a fact that continues to puzzle policy-makers.

As the UN’s sustainable development goals have committed the world to achieving universal completion of secondary education by 2030, it is important to take note of boys’ continuing disadvantage in several countries at this level, says the report.

UNESCO also claims that actively addressing boys’ disadvantage in education could be transformative in promoting gender equality, reducing violence and protecting youth from risk factors that could distort their futures.

The agency’s paper describes the extent of the problem, examines where and why it occurs and explores possible solutions. It concludes that entrenched gender norms negatively affect the education outcomes not only of girls, but also of boys.

Gender expectations pull poor boys out of school and into unskilled jobs that do not require secondary school completion, say the report’s authors.

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Achieving gender equality in education: don’t forget the boys