Gender, culture and STEM: Counter-intuitive patterns in Arab society

Naomi Friedman-Sokuler and Moshe Justman

Economics of Education Review, 2020, vol. 74, issue C

Abstract: Using longitudinal administrative data to track student achievement and choice, we show how social conditioning shapes gender differences in the choice of STEM study fields, after controlling for prior achievement and socio-economic background. The male majority in advanced matriculation electives in mathematics, physics, and computer science, observed among students in Hebrew-language schools in Israel as in other Western societies, is reversed among Arab students, a society with markedly less gender equality. This greater representation of Arab female students in STEM study fields is only partially explained by the large gender gap favoring girls in eighth-grade mathematics and science achievement in Arabic-language schools. Much of the remaining difference in gender gaps can be traced to differences in the relationship between prior circumstance and choice between the two groups. This belies the notion of a congenital female aversion to traditionally male STEM subjects, and accords with previous findings that gender differences in preferences are greater in societies with greater gender equality. Following a cohort of eight-grade students to matriculation eliminates the selection bias that attenuates estimates of gender gaps in studies that analyze choices of college-bound students.

Keywords: Culture; Gender gap in mathematics; STEM; Arab society; Educational choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J15 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775719303449
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender, Culture and STEM: Counter-Intuitive Patterns in Arab Society (2019)
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:eee:ecoedu:v:74:y:2020:i:c:s0272775719303449

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101947

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().