Early Gendered Performance Gaps in Math: An Investigation on French Data

Thomas Breda (), Joyce Sultan Parraud and Lola Touitou
Additional contact information
Thomas Breda: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, IPP - Institut des politiques publiques
Joyce Sultan Parraud: IPP - Institut des politiques publiques
Lola Touitou: IPP - Institut des politiques publiques

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: While there is no gap in math performance at the beginning of Grade 1, a gap in favor of boys appears and widens during the first year of primary school. Using standardized national assessments administered during Grade 1 (CP) to more than 2.5 million pupils in France between 2018 and 2022, we show that this relative drop in girls' performance is observed for all the cohorts and most of the exercises assessed. The greatest drop-off occurs among the best-performing girls at the start of Grade 1 (those in the top 1 % initially). These girls lose an average of nearly 7 percentile ranks at the start of second grade compared with boys in the same initial percentile. The emergence of a gender gap in math performance during Grade 1 is observed across all social categories and family compositions, and throughout the country. Girls lose slightly less ground compared to boys in classes where the top student in math is a girl, and in priority networks public schools (REP or REP+). However, characteristics of the school environment explain only a small part of the overall dynamics, suggesting that girls are losing ground compared to boys in every strata of society.

Keywords: Gender gaps; Math performance; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-06
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04414597v2
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04414597v2/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-04414597

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().