Girls Outperform Boys at School Despite Inequalities: Findings from a new piece of education market research suggests that, even in countries where women’s rights and level of equality with males is limited, female students outperform males in the classroom.

Girls Outperform Boys at School Despite Inequalities

According to research published by psychologists at the universities of Glasgow and Missouri, girls outperform boys across mathematics, reading, science and literacy in more than two thirds (70%) of countries in the study. The researchers looked at results from 1.5 million fifteen year old pupils using data from PISA tests taken across 74 world regions between 2000 and 2010.

The results suggested that even in countries such as Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates girls outstrip boys in terms of performance – despite these nations being known for their lack of gender equality. In contrast, there were only three areas where boys outperformed girls – Colombia, Costa Rica and Himachal Pradesh, a state within India.

According to the study, there as not significant difference between the sexes in terms of educational achievement in the UK or in the United States. There was however, a global pattern which suggested that the top achievers amongst boys outperformed the top achievers amongst girls.

The University of Glasgow’s Dr. Gijsbert Stoet, the researcher who led the study, said that, with the exception of high achievers, boys experience ‘poorer educational outcomes than girls around the world, in dependent of social equality indicators…if policy makers are seriously concerned about gender inequality in education this ought to be their top priority.’

The research findings were published in the educational journal Intelligence.