An survey by the Institute of Health and Community Studies of Bournemouth University in Britain has yielded some interesting results:

"The good news and, perhaps, unexpected is that the 2005 youngsters have less problematic behaviour than the 1985 cohort and even with the problematic behaviour, drugs, drink and sex, this is still a minority activity," said Prof Pritchard.

"The bad news, however, is that 20 years ago boys drugged, drank, smoked, truanted, stole, vandalised and fought more than girls. Today it is very different. Girls now significantly smoke and binge-drink more than boys.

"They truant, steal and fight at similar rates to boys but have started under-aged sex earlier than boys with 17% of lads in Year 11 having their First-Sexual-Intercourse (FSI) whereas 31% of Year 11 girls have had their FSI, indicating they are going with older boys."

Pritchard blames the Spice Girls. Silly as that may sound at first, he may have a point. There certainly is a push in some entertainment circles for "girl power." One of the things that I've found most interesting about Nashville country music - which generally serves a more conservative audience -- is that you have "girl power" acts like the Dixie Chicks and SheDaisy and Jo Dee Messina while the guys spend most of their time moping about their sad relationship with their drunken father and a broken heart.

But encouragingly, the issue is as much improvement in the self-reported behavior of boys than the deterioriation of girls' behavior. Of course, "self-reported" is the key word here. But even if the difference completely falls on girls' willingness to discuss their misdeeds and boys increasing unwillingness to do so, that could be significant in itself. The stereotype has historically been that boys's bad behavior is tolerated while girls are expected to be considerably more obedient and well-behaved. It could be that in Britain right now it's the boys that feel more compelled to downplay their indiscretions and girls to brag about them. That in and of itself would be quite the reversal.

I wonder what a similar study in the US would say, if anything.