Chapter 18: Gender Differences in Educational Achievement: A Socio-Cultural Analysis

Educational achievement data are one of the main sources by which “differences” between sub groups, such as girls and boys, are made visible. How we understand the bases of such data is critical in determining how we interpret these measured differences. It is these interpretations of data that inform the ameliorating actions that are advocated to improve learning for sub groups. The interpretations depend in part on understandings of the measures themselves and, therefore, what judgements it is possible to make in relation to them, and on the social and political contexts in which they are embedded.

The prevailing political and economic climates in Europe, America, Australia as well as in South Africa towards the end of the 1990s picked up on boys’ level of examination achievement in relation to girls’ as a serious social and economic problem. This culminated in a widespread moral panic that led to several interventions at school and classroom level. We have challenged both the basis of this moral panic and critiqued the interventions as being based on misunderstandings of both gender and assessment—their nature, interactions and consequences (Ivinson & Murphy, 2003).