As the U.S. economy continues to undergo rapid change that makes occupational pathways even more critical, finding ways to engage and energize male students—many of whom are floundering in traditional settings—is becoming ever more crucial. Career and technical education (CTE) offers an avenue for young men who have fallen behind academically and economically and who may as a result suffer at many points along their life courses.  

To explore that avenue, MDRC hosted a panel on research indicating that male students who engage in CTE have better educational and employment outcomes than those who do not. Moderated by Rachel Rosen, the director of MDRC’s CTE Center, the May 2024 webinar, “Why Are Boys Succeeding in Career and Technical Education While Struggling in Postsecondary Education?” featured Richard Reeves, founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men; Shaun Dougherty, professor of education and policy at Boston College; and Diallo Shabazz, head of the New York State Council for P-TECH, an accelerated pathway to an associate’s degree that includes work-based learning experiences while in high school.

Education and Employment Trends for Men

Reeves, a prominent gender scholar, opened the discussion with an overview of the multiple societal challenges faced by men, including academic and labor market trends that he theorizes have made it harder over time for male students to see viable career paths:

1. Male participation in the labor force has been in decline since the 1970s, most of all for men without college degrees. This trend coincides with the switch from a production-oriented to a service-based economy, which has erased many jobs that men have traditionally performed. (The manufacturing sector alone lost 7.7 million jobs between 1980 and 2017.)
2. Male academic performance is also in decline. Boys lag behind girls by about a grade level in literacy and are more likely to be chronically absent from school. Men are less likely than women to be in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, and in 2021, only 36 percent of male high school graduates enrolled in a four-year college, compared with 51 percent of female graduates.

Enter CTE

Career and technical education is proving to be an attractive and effective alternative for male students. Dougherty, a renowned CTE scholar, shared several studies with the panel showing that male students enrolled in CTE fare better academically than other male students, with higher secondary school attendance rates, tenth-grade test scores, and graduation rates and more frequent matriculation at two-year institutions. In addition, some evidence suggests that men who participate in CTE go on to earn substantially more than men without that exposure—a finding reflecting, in part, their pursuit of high-earning fields like advanced manufacturing and information technology.

The Interaction of CTE and Gender in Practice

Shabazz, who heads the New York State P-TECH Leadership Council, put research on male academic performance into context using his experience in CTE settings that largely serve young men. P-TECH is an educational model that partners high schools and community colleges with employers to prepare students for both college and career over six years starting in the ninth grade. P-TECH participants complete associate’s degrees while developing professional skills through internships, mentoring, and job shadowing.

Recent scholarship from MDRC, which used a rigorous, randomized lottery design, found that P-TECH students were more likely than other students to earn postsecondary degrees within three years of high school. Notably, the researchers found that this outcome primarily reflected impacts on young men. That is, the young women in the study performed about equally as well whether they were enrolled in P-TECH or not, but the young men who attended P-TECH did much better than those in the comparison group. 

Shabazz did not find this gender divide surprising as the P-TECH students he works with in New York are predominantly young men from low-income backgrounds who are pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). He elucidated features of P-TECH’s instructional design that may be inducing more young men to enroll and improving their educational and career outcomes:

1. Pedagogy with a Point: P-TECH offers a hands-on approach. Students gain technical skills for STEM occupations and professional skills for career development while engaged in project-based learning. The opportunity to apply educational concepts to real life may be particularly appealing to boys and men.
2. People: P-TECH students have access to employer advisers as well as school-based ones. Some research suggests that male students are more relational learners, and an advising component may contribute to an ideal learning community for young men.
3. Prescribed Pathways: P-TECH establishes a clear sequence of study and requirements, with many checkpoints for student accountability. This structure may be of particular benefit to male students, who can struggle more than female students with the transition from secondary to postsecondary education and often need more direction.

Future Inquiry

While the positive findings for young men in P-TECH align with similar findings in other rigorous studies of CTE programs, the programmatic mechanisms responsible for these effects are not yet known. The panelists set a number of goals for further investigation:

1. Identify how CTE produces its effects.
   Studies are needed to isolate the mechanisms causing the positive CTE outcomes for young men. To better inform policy development and program implementation, this research should illuminate which features of the model are essential and which are not as closely tied to outcomes of interest.
2. Determine how to incorporate CTE features in comprehensive high schools.
   Guiding schools in the implementation of evidence-based CTE approaches can help ensure the successful expansion of promising nontraditional programs and components. Identifying best practices can also help administrators anticipate costs and associated returns.
3. Address the gendered sorting found with CTE.
   Young men are overrepresented in CTE pathways that lead to traditionally male-dominated, higher-paying STEM and trade jobs, while young women are overrepresented in CTE pathways that lead to traditionally female-dominated, lower-paying jobs in health care and education. Further research could uncover the motivations for this gendered sorting and suggest strategies to create more balanced participation.