Mathematics achievement of girls and boys in grade eight: results from twenty countries

Over the past two decades researchers have shown considerable interest in the relationship between the gender and the mathematics achievement of children in the upper grades of the elementary schools. Many studies to date have shown that by age 13 boys are significantly superior to girls in both their mathematical performance and their attitudes toward mathematics (Aiken, 1976; Backman, 1972; Benbow and Stanley, 1980; Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974; Mullis, 1975; Suydam and Riedesel, 1969), and that the male advantage is especially pronounced among high-scoring exceptionallygifted students, with boys outnumbering girls 13 to I (Benbow and Stanley, 1983). It should be stressed that some research has also shown that gender-related differences in achievement vary considerably both within and among countries (Schildkamp-Kuindiger, 1982), and are influenced by the educational environment and by psychosocial processes (Burton, 1986; Fennema, 1985; Leder, 1986; Walden and Walkerdine, 1986). In a most recent overview of cognitive gender differences, Feingold (1988) looked at standardized tests administered between the years 1960 and 1983, and found that gender differences declined over the years surveyed. The purpose of the present analysis is to pursue the question of gender differences in mathematics achievement from a cross-cultural perspective, on the basis of the data of a large-scale international study of mathematics. The breadth of this study makes it possible to gain new information about the scope and the variation of gender differences.