Sex Differences in Education: an overview

The differences associated with gender have been spectacularly highlighted in discussions of education during recent decades. It is probably a weakness in these discussions that they tend to focus on the disadvantages associated with the education of females rather than dealing even-handedly with the effects on both males and females of determining educational opportunities on gender alone or on gender principally. Yet it can well be argued that the bias has been towards studying the education of females because that is where disadvantages are more evident: in that area formal opportunities to make progress have shown the clearest negative association with gender. This special issue of Comparative Education is therefore following an almost inevitable path when it studies-though not exclusively-what happens in the education of girls and women in different parts of the world. In mitigation it may perhaps be suggested that if a number of articles are forthcoming which focus on disadvantages accruing to males in education because of gender-related differentiations, another special issue will be produced. In many countries great advances have been made since the 1950s in increasing the access of girls and women to education. Figures published by Unesco show that by now girls participate equally with boys in primary education and secondary education in developed countries. Indeed in some developed countries the question now arises whether boys are disadvantaged in secondary education, since girls seem to do rather better than boys in exams at the end of secondary schooling: in France, Greece, Scotland and other countries this seems to be the case; or, as in England and Wales, fewer girls than boys leave at the end of compulsory schooling with no certificate qualifications. This 'superior' performance by girls is evident in other systems too. Yet before this is seen as a point at which boys need positive discrimination it has to be checked whether the apparent advantage of girls is in general secondary education while boys are following technical-vocational courses to obtain marketable skills. Nevertheless, the trend merits attention. In developing countries, however, girls are still catching up at primary level and remain in a minority at secondary level; though here some countries in Africa and Asia have considered-and occasionally implemented-positive discrimination to assist girls by quotas of places, scholarships, etc. In higher education, again, the position of women has improved very markedly. Yet even in some developed countries they are not yet equally represented at university level, and they remain in a distinct minority in third level education in many developing countries. In what could be described as 'higher' higher education, that is, the level of second degrees and doctorate studies, women do remain in a minority even if the size of this minority is increasing in some countries. In teaching in higher education too, women have not yet achieved equal representation and equal status. Progress has been made: progress has still to be made. As comparativists we may wonder how the world-wide movement towards better access of women to education originated. Was it a matter of independent insights or has there been,