Hot off the presses at ICA Journal is a new article examining sex differences in achievement in reading, math and science across different countries and achievement levels.
Using data from the international PISA assessment, the authors whether within-individual strengths and weaknesses impacted overall sex differences in these topics.
Key findings:
Boys show consistent edges in math (0.33–0.71 SD) & science (0.19–0.39 SD) strengths; girls dominate reading (0.52–0.94 SD).
In countries with more gender equality, the sex differences in math, science, and reading are wider than in less equal countries. This is a phenomenon that is the exact opposite of what feminist and culture-only theories of sex differences predict and is known as the “gender equality paradox.”
For the most part, the same sex differences are observed among high, average, and low achievers (example below).
Because it focuses on inter- and intraindividual differences, this article can shed light on how sex differences develop. Gender egalitarianism seems to encourage adolescents of both sexes to develop pre-existing strengths in reading and science even further (see below). This occurs, despite the fact that average achievement in all subjects tends to be higher in these countries. In a way, “the rich get richer” and “the poor get somewhat less poor.”
Finally, high-achievers have the same intraindividual strengths and weaknesses that the rest of the population does: females generally having their greatest strength in reading and males in science and math. As a result, even though these females have high math and science achievement, it’s still usually lower than their reading achievement. The authors theorize that this may be one reason why bright women choose non-STEM careers: they have other options (e.g., verbal careers) that draw on their greater strengths.
Original post: https://x.com/RiotIQ/status/1988323472485884327?s=20
Full article: https://doi.org/10.65550/001c.146580