Gender Gap in Reading

This report examined 3 decades of U.S. student achievement in reading and writing from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to determine the magnitude of gender differences, and whether these were declining over time. Examination of effect sizes found a developmental progression from initially small gender differences in Grade 4 toward larger effects as students progress through schooling. Differences for reading were small-to-medium, medium-sized for writing, and were stable over the historical time. Additionally, there were pronounced imbalances in gender ratios at the lower left and upper right tails of the ability spectrum. Language and verbal abilities represent one exception to the general rule of gender similarities, and the researchers discuss the educational implications of these findings.

Reilly, D., Neumann, D. L., & Andrews, G. (2018). Gender differences in reading and writing achievement: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). American Psychologist. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000356

Suspensions Unequal Between Races

According to this study, 28.3 percent of black males, on average, were suspended at least once during a school year, nearly three times the 10 percent rate for white males. Black females were suspended more than four times as often as white females (18 percent vs. 4 percent). “As the number of suspensions for kids of all races and all grades has risen dramatically, the gap between suspension rates for blacks and whites has more than tripled—from about 3 percentage points in the 1970s to more than 10 percentage points today,” said Daniel J. Losen.

Losen, D. J., & Skiba, R. J. (2010). Suspended education urban middle schools in crisis. Bloomington, IN: Civil Rights Project. https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/school-discipline/suspended-education-urban-middle-schools-in-crisis/Suspended-Education_FINAL-2.pdf

Gender Gap for High Achievement Levels in Math

Researchers from MIT found that girls generally are underrepresented in math competitions. Their study uses a new data source, American Mathematics Competitions, to examine the gender gap among high school students at very high achievement levels. According to their study, they looked at gender trends in math competitions and found that peer pressure may be one reason for the gender gap. The highest achieving girls in the U.S. are concentrated in a very small set of elite schools, suggesting that almost all girls with the ability to reach high math achievement levels are not doing so. The implications from this study call for further research in this area of study to explore the drastic gender gap in high achievement levels for math.

Ellison, G., & Swanson, A. (2009). The gender gap in secondary school mathematics at high achievement levels: Evidence from the American mathematics competitions. Cambridge, MA: MIT. http://economics.mit.edu/files/4298