The Influence of Female-Related Demographics on Academic Gender Gaps: An Analysis of Student Achievement Scores

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 7: Educational Disparities

Abstract

Student-level predictors of academic achievement have been widely examined, and suggest that factors such as SES, race, and gender continue to matter for students’ educational outcomes. The gender achievement gap has been amply examined, finding that there are differences between males and females at various points of the educational pipeline and across various outcomes. Little research has examined, however, the influence of contextual factors on this gender achievement gap. To examine the extent to which gender parity indicators across four dimensions of equality (social, educational, economic, political) influence the gender achievement gap, I analyze mathematics achievement for students in 37 high-income countries. Using within- and cross-level interactions in HLM analysis, I find that the gender achievement gap is no longer significant among the most advantaged groups, and that an increase in gender parity across three dimensions of equality reduce the achievement gap, sometimes at the expense of higher academic achievement.

Author

• Florencia Silveira, SUNY-Albany