Gender Differences in Learning Styles

I have a friend who teaches at a school that separates boys and girls in the classroom. He went to a conference recently that talked about the different ways that boys and girls learn. I have always been told that boys need hand on activities and space to move around, but that girls can pay attention without it. Why is this? Does it have to do more with the way we raise boys and girls and not about biological  development.  Why is it that girls are labeled "more mature" and better at concentration? If we raised children differently where gender roles were minimized would this make a major difference?


"A report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that gender differences in personality were remarkably robust across all cultures studied, including China, sub-Saharan Africa, Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, the United States, and Europe (including specific studies in Croatia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia and western Russia). "Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized," the authors concluded.
Source: Paul Costa, Antonio Terracciano, & Robert McCrae, "Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: robust and surprising findings," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 81, number 2, pp. 322-331, 2001.


How  much do traditional sex roles influence men and women's learning style? I'm doing some research and looking into this .. but for right now its just some food for thought