Girls lead boys in academic achievement globally

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/uom-glb012615.php

Public Release: 26-Jan-2015
University of Missouri-Columbia

Considerable attention has been paid to how boys' educational achievements in science and math compare to girls' accomplishments in those areas, often leading to the assumption that boys outperform girls in these areas. Now, using international data, researchers at the University of Missouri and the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland, have determined that girls outperform boys in educational achievement in 70 percent of the countries they studied--regardless of the level of gender, political, economic or social equality.

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"Even in countries where women's liberties are severely restricted, we found that girls are outperforming boys in reading, mathematics, and science literacy by age 15, regardless of political, economic, social or gender equality issues and policies found in those countries."

According to the data, boys fall behind girls in overall achievement across reading, mathematics, and science in 70 percent of the countries studied. Boys outperform girls in only three countries or regions: Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state, Himachal Pradesh. Boys and girls had similar educational achievements in the United States and United Kingdom.

In countries known for relatively low gender equality ratings, such as Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, the educational achievement gap is relatively large and favors girls.

The one exception worldwide is among students in economically developed nations where high achieving boys outperform high achieving girls, researchers said.

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