Gender Differences in School Achievement

Abstract

The relative school achievement of female and male students varies over time and domains. During the last decades, female participation in primary schooling has increased in countries at the low end of the income scale. At the same time, in countries at the high end of the same scale, male underachievement has gained much attention. Gender differences in school achievement cannot be understood purely as a result of classroom activities or of schools as social systems. Factors in society have to play an important role as well, since countries vary drastically in the same assessments of student gender gaps. How men and women are positioned in power structures, in the labor market, and in the family is considered important. Cultural traditions affecting social relations, the understanding of the self, and different attitudes towards schooling are always present. However, school achievement is important for individual life opportunities and achievement differences between females and males are markers of a society's gender structure.In this chapter, we systematically review research on gender differences across several domains, including mathematics, science, reading, civics, and computer and information literacy. The focus on international large-scale assessment (ILSA) data allows to compare gender gaps across countries or regions, across domains, and over time. In a first step, we systematically reviewed the primary reports of main ILSA studies with respect to gender gaps in achievement. Second, we systematically reviewed 42 secondary analyses of ILSA data that investigated correlates of gender differences in achievement and therefore add a more explanatory perspective to the chapter.

International Reading Gaps between Boys and Girls, 1970–2016

“…The literature considers various cultural, political, and school enrolment characteristics of countries as possible explanations for the large between-country differences in reading gender gaps (cf. UNESCO 2019; World Economic Forum 2019; Rosén et al 2022). Interestingly, we found the most pronounced reading advantages for girls in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi), Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia (all measurement points d > 0.20).…”

“…We believe that the described findings on international long-term gender gap trends can, however, serve as a valuable starting point for future studies that seek to explain between-country differences in gender gaps (cf. overview by Rosén et al 2022). The present study has thus made an important contribution to the state of research by thoroughly describing and decomposing gender gaps in reading comprehension at the end of primary school across all available countries since the beginning of international large-scale studies.…”

IQB-Bildungstrend 2022. Sprachliche Kompetenzen am Ende der 9. Jahrgangsstufe im dritten Ländervergleich

“…Derartige Geschlechterdisparitäten zeichnen sich teilweise schon im Elementarbereich ab, scheinen sich im Verlauf der Grundschulzeit weiter auszubilden und bis zum Ende der Sekundarstufe zu verfestigen (Stanat et al, 2018). Allerdings betrifft dies verschiedene Fächer, Kompetenzbereiche und Leistungsniveaus in unterschiedlicher Weise (Keller et al, 2022;Rosén et al, 2022). Zur Erklärung von Geschlechterunterschieden haben Forschende verschiedene Theorien entwickelt und empirisch überprüft (siehe für einen Überblick Halpern, 2012;Muntoni & Retelsdorf, 2020).…”

“…2 , TIMSS3 und PISA4 als auch in den Studien des IQB zum nationalen Bildungsmonitoring sowie in Metaanalysen und zahlreichen weiteren empirischen Untersuchungen wurden Disparitäten in den von Mädchen und Jungen im Durchschnitt erreichten Kompetenzen wiederholt beobachtet (für aktuelle Überblicksbeiträge sieheKeller et al, 2022;Rosén et al, 2022). Nachfolgend werden zentrale empirische Befunde für den sprach lichen Bereich zusammengefasst, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf den in Tabelle 6.2 dargestellten Ergebnissen der Studien des IQB zur Überprüfung des Erreichens der Bildungsstandards liegt.…”

Egalitarian gender role attitudes give girls the edge: Exploring the role of students’ gender role attitudes in reading and math

“…PIRLS 1 , PISA 2 , and TIMSS 3 (for an overview see Stanat et al, 2018;Hannover & Wolter, 2021;Rosén et al, 2022). Across countries and languages, female students, on average, outperform male students in reading, and male students often outperform female students in math, though the gender gap in math is less consistent and typically less pronounced than in reading (Mullis et al, 2017(Mullis et al, , 2020OECD, 2019).…”