Analysis Of Gender Inequality In Education

Gender inequality in education is an issue that has a long term impact on everyone – students, parents, educators, and the public at large. It is an often contentious subject and, while found to exist by study after study, is often denied or disregarded by the individuals most directly affected by it. Schools have been required to provide boys and girls with equal educational opportunities since the ratification of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Luongo, 2012). This paper reviews studies of gender inequality in education, examining the attitudes towards gender inequality found among education stakeholders, and methods for decreasing its occurrence. According to UNESCO, gender equality in education refers to boys and girls experiencing “the same advantages …show more content…
Gender inequality can be seen in many different ways in educational settings. Luongo (2012) studied patterns of access to technology for boys and girls in a sample of kindergarten, first, second, and third grade classes. Students were observed in the computer lab and researchers observed how many times teachers assisted boys and girls and how often positive feedback was provided. The pre-intervention rates of assistance for boys was much higher for boys than it was for girls, approaching a 50% difference. Boys received positive responses from their teacher three times more frequently that the girls did. Gender inequality is also seen in the gender gap in mathematics achievement. In kindergarten, there is no gender gap in mathematics achievement between boys and girls. By the third grade there is a one standard deviation gap, with girls falling behind boys (Robinson-Cimpian, Lubienski, Ganley, and Copur-Genturk, 2014). Girls also have lower confidence in STEM related abilities, such as engineering, despite evidence to the contrary (Riegle-Crumb, and Moore,