A short thread on the educational gender gap because I think it's going to become one of the biggest questions in developed world education over the next few years...
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In nearly all countries girls do better than boys at reading but in most countries boys do better than maths. However - in countries with higher gender equality girls do *even* better in reading and also close the maths gap (even eliminating it in the most equal countries).pic.twitter.com/6KOdO86Rd8
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The same thing is happening in England. As society gets more equal (not yet equal of course) the gender gap keeps widening in favour of girls. In 2015 girls were 10% ahead on the "attainment 8" GCSE measure. In 2017 they were 13%. It's going up year on year.
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This means more girls than boys are doing A-levels and a lot more are going on to university. Women are now 36% more likely to apply than men and this gap will keep growing.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/gender-gap-university-applications-high-men-women-ucas-figures-students-a8191491.html …
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And yet there is no evidence that girls have higher innate intelligence than boys. There's a lot of debate about IQ sex differences but there aren't big differences in any direction.
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So why such a big gender gap? If it's not environment and it's not genetics then it must be something to do with the process of education. (And I don't think - boys need to do practical things like woodwork is the answer....)
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We do need to do more thinking about this because no society wants increasing numbers of unemployable young men. Indeed it's probably fair to say we're seeing some of the effects of this problem in the cultural wars going on at the moment. <Thread ends>
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Replying to @Samfr
Very interesting thread. Crucially, it’s not in women’s interests for men not get good qualifications and jobs - we marry them, have kids with them and share household bills with them!
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Replying to @JuliaHB1
It's also not zero sum - the higher the overall education level in society the stronger the economy and the more good jobs available for everyone.
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Indeed. Isn’t there quite a lot of evidence that the “feminisation” of education - largely female teachers, and taking competition out of school lessons and sport - has been bad for boys?
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