I was recently invited by the University of Luxembourg as a keynote speaker at an International Conference, ‘Gender Variations in Educational Success: Searching for Causes’. It quickly became apparent that boys’ achievement with respect to girls’ is an international, hot topic. National and political concerns in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg have created a mass of research dominated by multivariate analysis and structural equation modelling.  Scholars from these countries drew heavily on data available from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to search for the ‘causes’ of boys’ underachievement. Alongside PISA data they used national public examination and test scores, psycho metric measures of cognitive competencies in, for example, reading, mathematics and problem solving, scales of well-being and data gathered from questionnaires designed by researchers to capture, for example young people’s motivations to learn. Read the full story

Once more the gap between girls’ and boys’ GCSE results (taken at 16) has been in the UK news (the results in Scotland were announced earlier in the year and did not attract the same kind of attention). Although it cannot be said that this has been the usual slow news Summer – we have had so far the Norwegian killings, riots and their aftermath in England, uprisings in Libya and Syria, stock market turbulence etc. etc. – this is generally the time of the year when journalists are looking for a story and try to make one up with the publication of the GCSE results. It is also the time of year when straw dogs are set up to be knocked down.  In my last post I noted how lone mothers and women teachers were being blamed for the riots. Well they are also being blamed for boys’ relative lower performance compared with girls, although other factors mentioned include over-use of course-work and grade inflation. Read the full story

Carol’s keynote opened the conference by taking stock of girls and women’s position in education for “without the past we can’t understand the present”. She began by troubling the idea of progress for in the history of girls education, things do not only get better. Read the full story

This month the UK newspapers have been awash with stories about the (supposedly) ever-decreasing ‘gender gap’. Indeed, several key reports relating to equalities issues have been released in the past month, all of which have been discussed at great length in the British media. Of greatest international significance, perhaps, have been the reports surrounding the progress made against the millennium development goals (a set of goals which were proposed by world leaders back in the year 2000 and were revisited last month as these leaders returned to New York for the UN summit, Singer 2010). Although a number of scholars have pointed to the fact that the success of achieving these goals has largely been attributable to moving the goalposts, the positive news reported last week was that gender parity in education was being achieved and in ways which had substantial effects upon the ability to reach other goals (e.g. infant mortality rates). Read the full story

At the start of the new school or academic year, UK broadcaster the BBC, in its wisdom, has decided to present a ‘school season’ in television programmes about the challenges of schooling and, of course, the focus was either gender-blind or specifically about boys! There are 4 programmes – Unequal Opportunities, Excluded, Britain’s Youngest Boarders and Gareth Malone’s Extraordinary school for boys – that bear comment. Read the full story

Once more, the annual hysteria around exam results is upon us in the UK, and as journalist Lucy Tobin puts it the gender debate that has been simmering for the last few years is set to ignite. Read the full story

There is a new Eurydice study: Gender Differences in Educational Outcomes: Study on the Measures Taken and the Current Situation in Europe. Read the full story

The conference entitled Gender Differences in Educational Achievement was held in Uppsala, Sweden under the auspices of the EU,  on 17-18 November 2009. Read the full story

Find out about GEA executive member, Carolyn Jackson’s, research on lads and ladettes in school by clicking on the video above.

The ‘Girls and Education 3-16’ seminar series enabled researchers, practitioners and policy makers to come together to discuss current concerns about girls’ education in the UK, and to consider new research agendas, policy imperatives and ways forward for practice. Read the full story