Girls Outperform Boys in School

Finally, it seems we have scientific proof that girls are better than boys. According to new research, females outperform males in educational achievement regardless of the level of gender, political, economic or social equality.

"We studied the educational achievement levels of 1.5 million 15-year-olds from around the world using data collected between 2000 and 2010," researcher David Geary from the University of Missouri said in a statement. "Even in countries where women's liberties are severely restricted, we found that girls are outperforming boys in reading, mathematics, and science literacy by age 15, regardless of political, economic, social or gender equality issues and policies found in those countries."

Previous research has suggested that at least for the subjects of science and math, boys have the upper hand. But now these latest results, published in the appropriately named journal Intelligence, show that boys fall behind girls in overall achievement across reading, mathematics, and even science in 70 percent of the countries studied.

The countries known for exceptionally low gender equality ratings, such Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, demonstrated the largest educational gaps, favoring girls above boys. While you might imagine the exact opposite to be true in these female-oppressed regions, apparently those girls that slipped through the cracks were enough to tip the scales in their favor.

The only countries in which boys managed to outperform girls were Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state, Himachal Pradesh. As for the United States, girls and boys were about equal.

"Results show that a commitment to gender equality on its own is not enough to close the achievement gaps in global education; the gap is not increasing," explained researcher Gijsbert Stoet, from the University of Glasgow. "Although it is vital that we promote gender equality in schools, we also need to make sure that we're doing more to understand why these gaps, especially among boys, persist and what other policies we can develop to close them."

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