WUNRN
AAUW - American Association of
University Women
Where
the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education (2008)
Where
the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education presents a
comprehensive look at girls’ educational achievement during the past 35 years,
paying special attention to the relationship between girls’ and boys’ progress.
Analyses of results from national standardized tests, such as the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the SAT and ACT college entrance
examinations, as well as other measures of educational achievement, provide an
overall picture of trends in gender equity from elementary school to college
and beyond.
Executive
Director Linda Hallman on the NewsHour
Review the transcript and watch the video from this
discussion of the report findings and how they might help educators better
address issues of learning and gender.
Questions?
Comments? Please contact AAUW Research at foundation@aauw.org
with any feedback or questions.
__________________________________________________________________
http://www.aauw.org/About/newsroom/pressreleases/whereGirlsAre_052008.cfm
Income Disparity More Influential
than Gender in Educational Achievement, Says Most Comprehensive Analysis to
Date
On Tuesday, May 20, AAUW released the most
comprehensive analysis to date on trends in educational achievement by gender,
race, ethnicity, and income. This report shows that girls and boys from the
fourth grade through the end of college are making steady educational gains. An
analysis of data from all 50 states indicates that girls’ successes do not come
at the expense of boys. This report is also the first to analyze gender differences
within economic and ethnic categories. The data show that family income is more
closely associated with academic success than with gender.
The report, Where
the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education,
presents a comprehensive look at girls’ educational achievement during the past
35 years, paying special attention to the relationship between girls’ and boys’
progress. Analyses of results from national standardized tests such as the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the SAT and ACT college
entrance examinations, as well as other measures of educational achievement,
provide an overall picture of trends in gender equity from elementary school to
college and beyond.
Girls’
Academic Success Does Not Penalize Boys
Across the
board, on all measures, when girls perform better academically, so do boys.
"A rising tide lifts all boats. When girls perform better in school, we
see improvements across gender, race, and income lines," stated AAUW
Executive Director Linda D. Hallman, CAE.
In states
where girls do well on standardized tests, so do boys. On the other hand, in
states where girls do not do well on standardized tests, neither do boys.
Standardized test performance in elementary and secondary school has improved
or remained stable for both sexes across the board. In addition, both women and
men are now more likely to take college entrance examinations such as the ACT
and the SAT, and more men and women graduate from college today than ever
before. The proportion of young men graduating from high school and earning
college degrees is at an all-time high. While older/nontraditional female
college students outnumber their male counterparts in earning college degrees,
the gender gap is almost absent among those entering college directly after
high school. Among traditional-age undergraduates (under age 24) from
high-income families, men and women are about equally likely to attend college.
Even though
more women than men are earning college degrees, men continue to outearn women
in the workplace almost immediately after graduation. AAUW’s report Behind
the Pay Gap, released last year, found that one year after
graduation, women earn 80 percent of men’s wages; ten years out of college,
women earn only 69 percent of men’s earnings. A sizeable portion of these pay
gaps cannot be explained by choices men and women make (such as field of study,
choice of job, and time out of the workforce to care for children).
Income
More Influential than Gender
Children
from the lowest-income families have the lowest average test scores on
standardized tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP). Consistently, a rise in family income is associated with a rise in test
scores. Differences in educational achievement vary by race/ethnicity and
family income level. For example, girls often outperform boys within each
racial/ethnic group on the NAEP reading test. When broken down within ethnic
groups, this gender gap is found to be most consistent among white students,
less so among African American students, and least among Hispanic students.
AAUW researchers and many others agree that part of the achievement gap results
from differences in family income, but the true extent of the overlap between
race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status is masked by limitations of available
federal data sources.
Conclusion
This
examination of gender trends in educational achievement since the 1970s, using
leading educational indicators from fourth grade to college, shows that girls’
gains have not come at boys’ expense. Overall, educational achievement has
improved or stayed the same, and more men and women are graduating from college
than ever before. Girls have made rapid gains in many areas, but boys are also
gaining ground on most indicators of academic achievement.
"One of
the ways AAUW is seeking to help girls who are facing educational barriers is
by encouraging them to move into the STEM (science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics) educational areas and to see the importance of STEM fields and
the opportunities available for them there," says AAUW Executive Director
Hallman.
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