Clever girls, stupid boys?
BBC News | Education and Family | Sean Coughlan | Education correspondent | 5 March
Clever girls, stupid boys. That’s become something of a modern educational orthodoxy, as girls across the developed world are more likely to get top exam grades and university places.
The gap is so great that the UK’s university admissions authority has warned that being male could soon be seen as a new form of social disadvantage.
In the UK, the gender gap between men and women entering university has never been wider. In a remarkable statistic from the Ucas admissions service, the gap is more than 50% in a quarter of parliamentary constituencies. And no doubt this disparity will play out over future generations.
But hold that bandwagon there.
Because a global study from the OECD, based on more than 60 countries, has thrown up some very interesting challenges to generalisations about girls always doing better than boys.
