According to Statistics Canada, men accounted for fully 68 per cent of university graduates in 1971. While that sounds impressive, that year also marked the beginning of a dramatic and precipitous fall for men, a fall that continues to this day.

By 1981, for example, men accounted for just 54 per cent of university grads, then for 49 per cent in 1991, for 42 per cent in 2001, and for just 40 per cent in 2006.

As can be discerned from considering these figures, it’s not just in university commencement ceremonies that men are mysteriously absent.

Rather, men are also missing in action in university populations: According to the federal government, just 18 per cent of men between 18 and 24 are in university, compared with 28 per cent of their female counterparts.

The lack of men in university is in part a result of the fact that more boys than girls drop out of high school, which is in turn the result of boys doing less well in both high school and elementary school.

Boys’ journey down the ladder of success has received a significant amount of attention, with many bestselling books devoted to explaining the problem and potential solutions, and virtually every educator chiming in about the matter.

Most commonly, we hear about the “feminized” educational system, about how boys’ brains and girls’ brains are wired differently, about how boys are more adept at spatial reasoning while girls excel with narratives. And we hear that our current approach to education favours those with a feminine neurological make up.

Now that might be true, but new research led by University of Georgia economist Chris Cornwell offers a simpler, though related explanation. Cornwell and his colleagues analyzed the results of both standardized tests and academic performance of more than 5,800 students from kindergarten through Grade 5.

They found that at every level, boys’ academic marks fell below where their test scores would predict. And they conclude that this discrepancy can be explained by non-cognitive factors — specifically by “how well a child was engaged in the classroom, how often the child externalized or internalized problems, how often the child lost control, and how well the child developed interpersonal skills.”

In other words, the boys were being penalized, not because they lacked knowledge or understanding, but because of their behaviour. There seems to be evidence of this in Canada as well, as the Youth in Transition survey found that boys — both those who succeeded and those who didn’t — were less likely than girls to be engaged in school, to enjoy the curriculum, or to get along with the teachers.

This all suggests that in our efforts to improve boys’ academic performance, we need to consider not merely how boys learn, but how they behave. Now to be sure, good behaviour is necessary in school and beyond, but there are many different ways to encourage such behaviour. And if we want to ensure boys get a fair shake, we must ensure that we are doing everything we can to make the academic experience something that appeals to both boys and girls, and that does so equally.