1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Where Are the Girls?
The State of Girls’ Programming in Greater Boston
A Report of the Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston
By Kathryn A. Wheeler, Rachel Oliveri, Ila Deshmukh Towery, and Molly Mead
in collaboration with the Girls’ Coalition Leadership Council
• The number of female delinquents in Massachusetts more than doubled from 1996 to 2003
• Girls are increasingly violent with each other—in and out of school
• The number of girls being sexually exploited through prostitution is rising rapidly in Boston, with
12 times as many cases of teen prostitution in the first nine months of 2005 as in all of 2003
These alarming statistics have recently landed girls in the news media spotlight and focused attention once
again on their specific and unique needs. Boston’s Mayor Thomas M. Menino, in response to this growing
concern, recently hosted a meeting of youth-serving agencies to announce new collaborative efforts for
girls with the Boston Centers for Youth and Families. This focus on girls is welcome by those who have
worked to empower girls through programming, advocacy, research, and education.
The document Where Are the Girls? is the product of a yearlong qualitative and quantitative analysis by the
Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston. Leaders in the local “girls’ world” provide evidence supporting the
uniqueness of girls’ emotional and educational development, the social and political consequences of
ignoring their needs, and the steps necessary to assure strong, confident, capable, and well-adjusted girls.
The report documents that girls in the Greater Boston area are woefully underserved by current programs.
For example, in after-school programs, the participants are overwhelmingly male, severely shortchanging
the leadership potential and social development of thousands of girls. With only 6 percent of philanthropic
dollars allotted to programming specifically geared toward girls, and an increasing number of girls at risk
for entering the juvenile justice system, vigor in research, policy, funding, and programming aimed at girls
and their needs is essential.
Where Are the Girls? presents the case for why it is critical to ensure that all youth programs pay explicit
attention to gender. Parity and growth of gender-sensitive programming for girls within both coeducational
and single-sex settings are crucial. These findings are grounded in substantial research that highlights the
disturbing decline in public attention and funding for girls over the last decade, both locally and nationally.
The report sounds the alarm to researchers, funders, youth program leaders, and policymakers and urges
them to take an active role in responding to girls’ needs with renewed vigor. Below are some of the primary
findings.
1. The need for gender-sensitive youth programming that meets the specific and unique needs of girls
is growing. Based on definitive trends in the coeducation of after-school programming—only 39 percent of
youth participants in local after-school programming are female—and qualitative data collected from those
working on the front lines of girls’ programming, the importance of girls-only programming has become
evident.
2. Funding for single-sex programs, particularly for girls, appears to be drying up. In Boston, 92
percent of foundation dollars go to coed programming; increasingly, specific references to “girls” and
“boys” have been erased from requests for proposals and replaced by references to “children” and “youth.”

2. Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston Report: Where Are the Girls? Executive Summary, p. 2 of 2
3. Distressing trends relative to girls in the Boston area, combined with the lack of solid information
on girls, speak to the need for continued research on how to meet girls’ needs. While Where Are the
Girls? reflects current data on girls’ programming and funding—both quantitative and qualitative—it also
points out the relative scarcity of comprehensive research on girls and how their specific social and
developmental needs can be met in after-school programming.
Recommendations
This report offers the following recommendations to the constituent groups that can play a key role in
advocating for girls and for gender-sensitive youth programming.
Recommendations to researchers
o Conduct follow-up studies on research done five years ago pertaining to youth programs, in order
to document change over time and examine the effects of progress and/or backsliding in meeting
girls’ needs
o Initiate comparison studies of gender-sensitive and gender-neutral youth programming, to examine
the effects on participating youth
o Engage in dialogue with youth-program practitioners; exchange expertise, and make research
findings accessible to them
o Develop gender-specific research tools to assess girls’ needs and the impact of programs
o Collect and analyze data that look at gender issues over time, that compare girls to boys, and that
examine the intersection of gender and other variables such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
and sexual orientation
Recommendations to policymakers
o Keep girls on the policy agenda
o Provide opportunities for girls and their adult advocates to meet with legislators
o Work with practitioners, researchers, and funders to advocate for gender-sensitive youth
programming
o Encourage the collection of data by gender
Recommendations to funders
o Create gender- and/or girl-specific funding initiatives (and collaborations)
o Highlight gender and the need for gender-sensitive programs in requests for proposals from youth
programs
o Give gender-sensitive programs time to develop and succeed (multiyear funding)
o Provide funds for evaluation, especially participatory evaluation involving input from girls
o Provide funds for professional development (e.g., youth-worker certification, ongoing gender-
sensitivity training)
o Facilitate collaboration and resource sharing among gender-sensitive programs
o Collect data that examine the intersection of gender and funding (e.g., the amount allocated for
girls-only vs. coed programs)
Recommendations to coed and single-sex girls’ programmers
o Reach out to underserved groups of girls (e.g., immigrant, sexually exploited, lesbian/bisexual/
transgender, court involved)
o Incorporate elements of gender-sensitive programming in design, practice, and evaluation
o Collect data by gender
o Use gender-specific research tools to assess girls’ needs and the impact of programs
o Form collaborations and share resources with other youth programs committed to gender-
sensitivity and diversity
o Provide ongoing opportunities for staff and youth training on gender sensitivity and diversity
o Use resources and trainings developed by the Girls’ Coalition to educate staff, inform parents, and
raise public awareness