What Explains Boys’ Educational Underachievement in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
This paper examines the factors that are associated with boys’ underachievement in mathematics and science in Saudi Arabia, where students attend gender-segregated schools from grade 1 onward, as well as student achievement in these two subjects in...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/869831641824797078/What-Explains-Boys-Educational-Underachievement-in-the-Kingdom-of-Saudi-Arabia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36817 |
| Summary: | This paper examines the factors that
are associated with boys’ underachievement in mathematics
and science in Saudi Arabia, where students attend
gender-segregated schools from grade 1 onward, as well as
student achievement in these two subjects in grades 4 and 8
more generally. The paper employs data from two recent
large-scale assessments of education: Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study 2019 and Saudi
Arabia’s National Assessment of Learning Outcomes 2018. The
results suggest that in grade 4, school climate was more
strongly associated with boys' compared with
girls' achievement in both mathematics and science,
with boys attending schools of poorer school climate having
a considerably lower performance compared with girls
attending such schools. The findings also indicate that
although greater literacy and numeracy readiness was linked
with higher science achievement among boys and girls, grade
4 boys tended to benefit more from this readiness than
girls. In addition, the results show that student
absenteeism in grade 4 is particularly strongly associated
with decreases in mathematics achievement among boys. In
grade 8, interactions between student gender and students’
confidence in science, the degree of schools’ emphasis on
academic success, and teachers’ age are observed. The paper
concludes by discussing some of the implications of these
findings for educators and policy makers in Saudi Arabia. |
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