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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sociol.
Sec. Sociology of Stratification
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1448488

The Gender Achievement Gap in Grades and Standardised Tests -What Accounts for Gender Inequality?

Provisionally accepted
Hannu Lehti Hannu Lehti *Markus Laaninen Markus Laaninen
  • University of Turku, Turku, Finland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    We studied the gender achievement gap in grades and standardised test scores in Finland, where the gender differences are largest among OECD countries. We compared the gender achievement gap in standardised test scores from PISA surveys and grades from high quality school registers in literacy. Further, we analysed how grades differ from standardised test scores by family background and students' SES composition of the schools. By using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method we explored how different characteristics between girls and boys explain gender differences in grading.Our findings indicate that boys' grades were lower than can be expected based on standardised test scores. The gender gap in grades was explained by boys lower reading interests, effort put into schoolwork and conscientiousness on homework. However, even adjusting for schooling characteristics and competence boys have lower grades than test scores in schools that have low SES student composition.

    Keywords: gender, Achievement gap, School, Grades, test scores

    Received: 13 Jun 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lehti and Laaninen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hannu Lehti, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

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