Gender Equality in Educational Achievement: An East-West Comparison

Sylke Schnepf

No 1317, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Data on educational access show gender parity of pupils attending primary and secondary schools in transition countries. The first aim of this analysis is to examine whether the gender balance in educational access translates also into gender equality in educational achievement. There are several and very recent international surveys available measuring pupils learning achievement and functional literacy in schools. These surveys are typically analysed in isolation from each other even though they are very different in their design. The second aim of this paper is to evaluate whether we find a robust pattern on gender equality in achievement across different sources: the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS), the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Programme of International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Besides a comparison of gender differences in mean achievement for transition and OECD countries we discuss alternatives for translating achievement scores into something easily understood. In addition, differences in boys’ and girls’ achievement distributions and determinants of gender inequality will be examined.

Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe; gender inequality; education; PISA; TIMSS; PIRLS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2004-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - revised version published in : Schnepf (ed.): Women in Central and Eastern Europe: Measuring Gender Inequality Differently. Saarbruecken, Germany: Verlag Mueller, 2007

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1317.pdf (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:iza:izadps:dp1317

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().