Gender differences in variability and extreme scores in an international context

The women’s success paradox Gender equity in educational outcomes is considered to be one of the major equity concerns in democratic societies (Marks 2008; Wagemaker 1996; Willingham and Cole 1997). Often associated with reduced career opportunities, gender differences in achievement are high-stake issues. One of the six key educational goals of UNESCO was to achieve gender equality in educational opportunities by 2015 (UNESCO 2011). From an educational point of view, paying attention to gender differences in developed countries, and in particular to the situation of girls, may seem outdated. In most countries, there has been a substantial rise in gender equality over the last decades (Barro and Lee 2001). Girls have gained much with the extension of compulsory education (Baudelot and Estabelet 2007); their grade retention rate is lower than boys’, they have on average better results in school, and are more likely to enter higher education (Buchmann and DiPrete 2006; OECD 2014a). Meta-analyses on gender differences demonstrate improvements in girls’ results over time. Focusing on mathematics U.S. math data (from 5 year-olds to adulthood), Hyde et al. (1990, p. 139) concluded that the “magnitude of the gender difference has declined over the years” (for studies published in 1973 or earlier Cohen d was 0.31, whereas it was 0.14 for studies published in 1974 or later). In international and national surveys, Lietz observed the opposite pattern for reading at the secondary level. [...] “Since 1992 girls Abstract This study examines gender differences in the variability of student performance in reading, mathematics and science. Twelve databases from IEA and PISA were used to analyze gender differences within an international perspective from 1995 to 2015. Effect sizes and variance ratios were computed. The main results are as follows. (1) Gender differences vary by content area, students’ educational levels, and students’ proficiency levels. The gender differences at the extreme tails of the distribution are often more substantial than the gender differences at the mean. (2) Exploring the extreme tails of the distributions shows that the situation of the weakest males in reading is a real matter of concern. In mathematics and science, males are more frequently among the highest performing students. (3) The “greater male variability hypothesis” is confirmed.