{"title":"When Boys Read better than Girls: The Correlation between Gender Disparities in Schooling Participation and Reading Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"Pearl Kyei","doi":"10.1080/18146627.2022.2151924","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Sub-Saharan African countries have made remarkable strides in closing the gender gap in primary enrolment and more girls than ever are attending school. With the existing gender differentials in youth literacy rates, an important question is whether they are learning as well as their male classmates. This article explored factors that contribute to gender gaps in reading for sixth-grade pupils from 61 396 pupils from 15 countries in the third evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III). Within-class sex differences in test score performance are estimated using ordinary least squares regression models. This is done by analysing the factors associated with female learning that inhibit school attendance and class participation. The results show a female disadvantage in reading in a little under half of the countries studied, which differs from the consistently observed female reading advantage in other parts of the world. Factors that prevent girls from fully attending and participating in school such as domestic responsibilities and hostile school environments explain part of the female disadvantage in reading, indicating that households and schools need to ensure that girls can attend and participate fully in their classes without distractions or fear.","PeriodicalId":44749,"journal":{"name":"Africa Education Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Africa Education Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2022.2151924","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Sub-Saharan African countries have made remarkable strides in closing the gender gap in primary enrolment and more girls than ever are attending school. With the existing gender differentials in youth literacy rates, an important question is whether they are learning as well as their male classmates. This article explored factors that contribute to gender gaps in reading for sixth-grade pupils from 61 396 pupils from 15 countries in the third evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III). Within-class sex differences in test score performance are estimated using ordinary least squares regression models. This is done by analysing the factors associated with female learning that inhibit school attendance and class participation. The results show a female disadvantage in reading in a little under half of the countries studied, which differs from the consistently observed female reading advantage in other parts of the world. Factors that prevent girls from fully attending and participating in school such as domestic responsibilities and hostile school environments explain part of the female disadvantage in reading, indicating that households and schools need to ensure that girls can attend and participate fully in their classes without distractions or fear.
期刊介绍:
Africa Education Review is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that seeks the submission of unpublished articles on current educational issues. It encourages debate on theory, policy and practice on a wide range of topics that represent a variety of disciplines, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary interests on international and global scale. The journal therefore welcomes contributions from associated disciplines including sociology, psychology and economics. Africa Education Review is interested in stimulating scholarly and intellectual debate on education in general, and higher education in particular on a global arena. What is of particular interest to the journal are manuscripts that seek to contribute to the challenges and issues facing primary and secondary in general, and higher education on the African continent and in the global contexts in particular. The journal welcomes contributions based on sound theoretical framework relating to policy issues and practice on the various aspects of higher education.