The gender gaps in mathematics and reading achievement refer to the finding that, on average, the two sexes perform differently in mathematics and reading skills on tests. On average, boys and men exceed in mathematics, while girls and women exceed in reading skills.
Mathematics and reading gaps by country
The
Programme for International Student Assessment
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-yea ...
assesses the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics and reading in OECD and OECD partner countries.
[
] The table below lists the scores of the PISA 2009 assessment in mathematics and reading by country, as well as the difference between boys and girls. Gaps in bold font mean that the gender gap is
statistically significant
In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when it is very unlikely to have occurred given the null hypothesis (simply by chance alone). More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the p ...
(
p<0.05). A positive mathematics gap means that boys outperform girls, a negative mathematics gap means that girls outperform boys. A positive reading gap means that girls outperform boys (no country has a negative reading gap). There is a negative
correlation
In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistic ...
between the mathematics and reading gender gaps, that is, nations with a larger mathematics gap have a smaller reading gap and vice versa.
References
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Gender equality
Gender and education