Abstract:
The terrain of gender inequalities in education has seen much change
in recent decades. This article reviews the empirical research and theoretical
perspectives on gender inequalities in educational performance
and attainment from early childhood to young adulthood. Much of
the literature on children and adolescents attends to performance differences
between girls and boys. Of course, achievement in elementary
and secondary school is linked to the level of education one
ultimately attains including high school completion, enrollment in postsecondary
education, college completion, and graduate and professional
school experiences. We recommend three directions for future research:
(a) interdisciplinary efforts to understand gender differences in cognitive
development and noncognitive abilities in early childhood,
(b) research on the structure and practices of schooling, and (c) analyses
of how gender differences might amplify other kinds of inequalities,
such as racial, ethnic, class, or nativity inequalities
