Girls do better than boys at school, despite inequality

New research shows that girls outperform boys in mathematics, reading and science literacy in 70 per cent of countries, regardless of levels of national gender equality.

Psychologists at the universities of Glasgow and Missouri looked at the educational achievement levels of 1.5 million 15-year-olds from around the world using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data taken between 2000 and 2010.

The findings, which are published in the journal Intelligence, show that even in countries which are known for their lack of gender equality, including Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, girls still outstrip educational performance of boys.

The study showed that there were only three regions where boys outperformed girls: Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state Himachal Pradesh.

However, the pattern was different at the highest achievement levels – with top performing boys doing better than top performing girls.

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