Education Capability: A Focus on Gender and Science

Abstract

The focus of the paper is on the measurement of science education capability with a gender perspective.Measuring science education capability implies going beyond the measurement of children test scores. In the capability approach, we aim at the real opportunities that children can develop later in life and therefore it is important to include some measures of non-cognitive skills. We utilize, therefore, different indicators in addition to test scores in science: enjoyment in science, interest in science, general and personal values of science, self-confidence in performing science related tasks, awareness and perception of environmental issues, and responsibility for sustainable development.We utilize the 2006 PISA survey for Italian 15 year old children because it contains a particular focus on science and we estimate a Structural Equation Model to take into account that capabilities are latent constructs of which we only observe some indicators. We also investigate the determinants of children's science education capability in Italy taking into account household, individual and school factors.Results confirm that boys outperform girls in science education capability. Our theoretical construct for the science education capability confirms that all the indicators are relevant to measure this capability. School activities to promote sciences improve girls' capability and interactive methods of teaching improve both girls and boys capability. The household educational resources and the household educational possession are also positively correlated with girls' and boys' science education capability.

Students’ voices—the dynamic interactions between learning preferences, gender, learning disabilities, and achievements in science studies

“…Knowing that male and female graduate students have similar cognitive abilities (Jeong & Davidson-Shivers, 2006;Liu & Wang, 2019;Reuben et al, 2014) may indicate the need to adapt teaching and learning methods to the different needs of boys and girls. Studies indicate that boys and girls have different learning preferences and use different approaches to learning (Addabbo et al, 2016;Bayrak, 2012;Fredricks et al, 2018). For example, although both boys and girls prefer student-centered learning (Fredricks et al, 2018), which includes visual, sensorimotor, social, and emotional dimensions, this preference is expressed differently.…”

Effectiveness of Gender Education in Ukraine as the Implementation of the Principle of Gender Parity

“…Studying the main causes of conflict in youth's environments, researchers point out that in the presence of a psychological culture (Eddy & Brownell, 2016), the youths can overcome communication barriers (Hauw et al, 2017), and resolve complex conflict situations, including gender issues, and show tolerance. On the other hand, differences in perception and withholding information from young people (Tansel & Güngör, 2016), unconstructive behaviour of conflicting parties (Cotton et al, 2016), and an imbalance in their social roles and corresponding gender-role behaviour (Addabbo et al, 2016) lead to a decrease in gender tolerance. Thus, the results of these studies show that the ability to resolve conflict situations increases the potential for gender tolerance.…”