In mathematics, the gender gap that favors children in the first grades is gradually disappearing, according to a new publication of the UNESCO Monitoring Report on Education in the World. This text calls for reflection on gender inequality and the barriers that prevent girls from developing their potential.
titled Deepening the debate on those who are still left behind, this annual report analyzed data from 120 countries on primary and secondary education. The results show that, in the early years, boys perform better than girls in mathematics, but that this gender difference disappears later.
Research confirms that the gender gap in learning has closed even in the poorest countries. And in some countries, it has been reversed. Where? The balance tips in favor of girls by 7 percentage points in Malaysia, by 3 points in Cambodia, by 1.7 points in the Congo and by 1.4 points in the Philippines.
However, it is likely that prejudices and stereotypes continue to affect. Even if the girls catch up in math in the second cycle of primary and secondary, boys are much more likely to be among the top performers in all countries.
Even in high- and middle-income countries, where secondary school girls score significantly higher in science, they remain less likely to opt for scientific careers, indicating that gender bias could continue to be an obstacle to further study in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
These data are from before the pandemic, Unesco warns, so it is necessary to know how much impact the closure of schools and failures in distance education had on this. It will be a year before the learning assessments are ready.
The situation in Latin America, where the gap persists
Although there are improvements globally, the equation continues to be “unbalanced” in countries like Ecuador, say the sociologist María Elina Estébanez (Flacso Argentina) and the Science, Technology and Innovation consultant Alessandro Bello, authors of the document Increase the participation of women in STEM in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“The exclusion of girls begins early and increases throughout their lives,” they argue in this publication, and point out the great contrast in Latin American countries, where fewer girls than boys achieve minimum levels of proficiency in mathematics at the upper level of primary education (10 of 12, UNICEF 2020).
The trend is like this: at the regional level, girls obtain better results in reading tests, while boys achieve better results in mathematics, “a phenomenon that increases as they progress through primary and secondary education,” according to the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study Third (2016).
In Brazil, in fourth grade, boys obtain 195.6 points in mathematics and girls 194.1, with only 1.5 points difference; but in eighth grade, boys outperform girls on math tests by 9.1 points (Instituto Nacional de Estudios y Pesquisas Educacionales, 2009).
In Argentina, the results of the Aprender 2016-17 test (mathematics and language) suggest that, while girls and boys perform similarly in primary education, in secondary education 10% more girls than boys have difficulties to reach the basic level of mathematics and language (2020).
Estébanez and Bello relate it to social stereotypes, which occur from an early age, in the family, when children internalize representations and social norms about feminine and masculine roles (toys, reading, movies, clothing). A frequent phenomenon, they point out, is that girls have little interest in technological games and elementary sciences, because in their environment they are considered masculine areas. Also, they are not encouraged to pursue STEM-related fields as much as boys. At the time of entering secondary school, they will find a consolidation of these barriers, because, although girls show attendance equal to or better than that of boys, performance is different.
The PISA 2018 tests, for example, show a difference in mathematics and science that favors boys over girls. The data also shows that one in three students is interested in a science-related career, but that boys are twice as likely as girls to consider a career in engineering. In Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, a career related to information and communication technologies (ICT) was considered by only 1% of girls, compared to 8% of boys.
Who influences this? Four actors: the student, the family and classmates, the school and society, according to Unesco. By the time they reach higher education, social patterns will have oriented women to the care industry and the social sciences, humanities and life sciences. In Latin America and the Caribbean, they are 70% of students in careers such as Education and Health and Well-being. Mathematics and statistics only have a 32% female participation, except in Uruguay. Globally, only 35% of all students enrolled in STEM-related fields are women (Unesco, 2018).
Girls outperform boys in reading
Going back to elementary and middle school, while girls do better in math and science, they do even better in reading. There are more girls than boys who reach the minimum reading level. The greatest difference is in Saudi Arabia, where 77% of girls and 51% of boys in fourth grade meet minimum reading proficiency.
In Thailand, girls outperform boys in reading by 18 percentage points, in the Dominican Republic by 11 points, and in Morocco by 10 points. Even in countries where girls and boys have the same reading level in the first grades, such as Lithuania and Norway, the gap in favor of girls increases to about 15 percentage points at age 15.
As Manos Antoninis, director of the UNESCO Monitoring Report on Education in the World, says, even with their reading results and their catching up in mathematics, girls are still much less likely to do better in the exact sciences, “due to prejudices and stereotypes. We need gender equality in learning and ensuring that every student develops their potential.” (F)
Source: Eluniverso
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