Gender and Educational Achievement

Gender inequalities in education in terms of systematic variations in access to educational institutions, in competencies, school marks, and educational certificates along the axis of gender have tremendously changed over the course of the 20th century. Although this does not apply to all stages and areas of the educational career, it is particularly obvious looking at upper secondary education. Before the major boost of educational expansion in the 1960s, womens participation in upper secondary general education, and their chances to successfully finish this educational pathway, have been lower than mens. However, towards the end of the 20th century, women were outperforming men in many European countries and beyond. The international contributions to this book attempt to shed light on the mechanisms behind gender inequalities and the changes made to reduce this inequality. Topics explored by the contributors include gender in science education in the UK; womens education in Luxembourg in the 19th and 20th century; the gender gap debates and their rhetoric in the UK and Finland; sociological perspectives on the gender-equality discourse in Finland; changing gender differences in West Germany in the 20th century; the interplay of subjective well-being and educational attainment in Switzerland; and a psychological perspective on gender identities, gender-related perceptions, students motivation, intelligence, personality, and the interaction between student and teacher gender. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Research.