According to a Nov. 15 article by Caroline Millburn of Australia's The Age newspaper, a new study shows that Australian girls are trailing their male counterparts in math and science achievement:
"People assume that girls are doing better in all subject areas and that's not the case," says the study's author, Associate Professor Helen Forgasz, of Monash University.
"There's no doubt that girls have higher pass rates overall and in a lot of subjects they are outperforming boys, but not in the maths, science and IT areas. They are still under-represented in these areas."
A gender gap in school maths achievement has re-emerged nationally, with Australia ranked with El Salvador, Ghana, Syria and Colombia in having the biggest gender difference favouring male students at year 8 level.
Many experts believe that inherent biases toward male students make it more difficult for girls to succeed in fields of study such as math and science. This is one of the reasons that many parents and other caregivers advocate on behalf of single-sex classes and/or single-sex schools.
Posted By: CRC Health
