Reality or Mentality

The book has some surprising statistics about how much women have progressed throughout the past decade. While I agree that the author does overlook the perception of female trailblazers, he does show how a larger percentage of women are attempting to have the same level of success as their male counterparts. The author believes that the presence of alpha girls indicates "a powerfully accelerating movement toward equality." While I would like to believe that his perception is accurate, his discussion about the ever-present salary gap between men and women and the lack of a strong female presence in Fortune 500 companies reveals an underlying factor that affects the progress of alpha girls. The overall perception of women must shift to support their ambition and overall success. Although powerful girls have existed for years, societies acceptance and interactions with females must alter. The mere fact that these successful young ladies are referred to as "alpha" rather than powerful females raises the questions: is society (especially males) ready for more females that can assert themselves and take charge of their futures? The socioeconomic factors discussed in the first chapters highlights that the discussion should be more focused on how society portrays and responds to these young women as they continue to grow.

Is it a problem that the author is a man?

Despite the fact that I am getting through the book with a lot of interest. I have to constantly pause and ask myself if it bothers me that the author is male. During the introduction, the author acknowledge the team members that made the book possible. He then went on to mention that there was only one female on the team to offer her "female" insight. I remember immediately being thrown by that. Its not that I really would have given it any notice, but when the author mentioned it I began to question was he a good authority to get this information about "The Alpha Girl." I believe that the Alpha girl exists, but I wonder if she always has. David Kindlon presents Alpha Girls as this new phenomenon. What about all the women that came before these Alpha Girls. How do we know they did not carry the same confidence and sense of purpose as Dan Kindlon's version of Alpha Girls. Has Kindlon only been able to notice the Alpha Girl of today because women of purpose and confidence in the professional and academic arena are now socially acceptable? As a man raised in a time where this was not acceptable, is he blind to the Alpha Girls throughout history? Why wouldn't female trailblazers be considered Alpha Girls?

xtreme alpha girl?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0rbMHLDY1pA

What about the dads?

I found it very interesting that Dr. Kindlon, himself a father of two daughters, chooses to focus an entire chapter of the book on the impact of close relationships between fathers and daughters on the development of these "alpha girls."  Kindlon claims that "closer relationships exist today between fathers and daughters than have existed in the past, and this has had a profound impact on the way many girls think and feel, how they interact with the world, and what they want and expect from life" (31).  Kindlon goes on to cite many examples of girls who claim to emulate their fathers in ways ranging from shared interests to future career paths, and makes the case that these alpha girls have picked up "masculine traits" from these father-daughter interactions.  He grounds this case in examples of physical play that fathers engage in with their children, the interest that many fathers take in their daughters' athletic ability, and cases in which fathers and daughters build radios together, to name only a few of the anecdotes and studies that Kindlon references.  The result of these relationships, Kindlon claims, is that these girls adopt traits from both parents, resulting in a balance of the traditionally masculine and the traditionally feminine.  While I cannot generalize across all of our classrooms--or even across all of the students in my own classroom--I know that many of my students (boys and girls) live in homes where their father is not present.  How does this affect the potential of my female students to become alpha girls?  How crucial do you think a father's involvement (or really, any parent's involvement) is to the success of these girls?  How can a mother or grandmother step in to give these girls what they need if a father is not present?  And finally, if you feel that exposure to and cultivation of these "masculine" traits is necessary for a girl's success, how can we as teachers try to fill these gaps within the classroom?

What about the Baltimore community?

Alpha Girls emphasizes the influence that society and culture has on the psyche of the female, and especially how she sets her expectations for herself. As our culture, and in particular our classroom culture, shifts toward eliminating discrimination for girls (81), girls have begun to set higher expectations of themselves in all areas. However, I wonder about the culture that exists in the communities that we work in daily. For the most part, Kindlon’s research was limited in that it did not address inner city schools in public non-charter schools. How do you think that the culture in these communities in particular could effect the expectations of our girls? What do you see in the culture of your school that either encourages or discourages the ambitious qualities of the alpha girl?

Alpha Girls & Poverty - Lydia Gray, Prompt 1

I just finished reading the Introduction and Chapter 1, and cannot help but to think about my own girls in my inner-city classroom. Few truly fit Kindlon’s definition of an “alpha girl”—3.8+ GPA, at least one leadership position, participation in extracurricular activities, high self-rating, and a high achievement motivation score. I’d classify three of my female students as “alpha girls”—far less than 20% of the girls I teach. Which has me thinking, that although we may live in a society where woman do not have to fight the battles over equal rights, we still live in a society where your life trajectory is severely limited by poverty and class, if not by gender. These gains in women’s rights may appear across socioeconomic strata, but they are less widespread among low-income and minority girls.

On page 13, Kindlon asks the question, “Has social and economic equality for men and women been achieved?” We may be close, but until every student is given equal access to a quality education, this question barely factors into the lives of the many American girls growing up in poverty.

What are your thoughts about the dynamics between the "alpha girl," socioeconomic status, and class?

Lydia

Alpha Girls - Overview

At the heart of our journey into cultural understanding is the idea that to teach our students effectively, we must understand them. Harvard University professor and child psychologist Dan Kindlon claims that the stale stereotypes of teenage girls are quickly losing their relevancy. In Alpha Girls, Kindlon argues that the image of the teenage girl as an insecure, competition averse, math and science averse wallflower no longer suit much of our population. In a series of surveys and personal interviews, which took Kindlon across the United States and through parts of Canada, he found that many girls are confident, bright, competitive and thirsty to make their mark in society. According to surveys he developed for this book, about 20 percent of girls fall into the “Alpha Girl” category.

To locate these “alpha girls” Kindlon produced a set of five criteria, which describe the typical “alpha girl”. These criteria are:

1. A GPA of 3.8 or higher

2. At least one leadership position in her school, extracurricular life or social life

3. Participation in extra curricular activities which minimums ten hours per week

4. High achievement motivation score based on her desire to:

a. Attend college

b. Own her own home

c. Make a great deal of money

d. Obtain a well-paying job

e. Build a good reputation in her community

f. Study hard to obtain good grades

g. Work hard to get ahead

h. Save money for the future

5. High self-rating for dependability

Alpha Girls outlines a series of factors that contribute to this shift in attitudes and realities of teenage girls. An increased presence of fathers in raising their children, increased freedom in available choices, movements made by feminism in previous generations and more women than men attending American universities are all billed by the author as pieces of the “alpha girls” puzzle.

Where Alpha Girls offers many answers for us as Americans, it raises more questions for us as educators. By the author’s own estimates, only 20 percent of girls qualify as “alpha girls”. How should we engage them as teachers and how should we engage the other 80 percent? How does this impact the self-esteem of boys in our classrooms?

We invite our colleagues to explore these questions and many more that will be raised here in the coming weeks as we attempt to gain a greater understanding of the “alpha girls” inside our classrooms and out.

Candace, Lydia, Millicent, Kyla, Chantress, Shaterra, & Danielle