Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education

Despite a sharp increase in the share of girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some countries. This paper argues that one explanation for this gender gap is the degree of social...

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Main Authors: Lewis, Maureen, Lockheed, Marlaine
Format: Policy Research Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/03/9086476/social-exclusion-gender-gap-education
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6498
id okr-10986-6498
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-64982021-04-23T14:02:31Z Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education Lewis, Maureen Lockheed, Marlaine ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION ETHNIC DIFFERENCES GENDER GAP LEARNING OUTCOMES LINGUISTIC HETEROGENEITYPSYCHOSOCIAL LIMITATIONS SOCIAL EXCLUSION Despite a sharp increase in the share of girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some countries. This paper argues that one explanation for this gender gap is the degree of social exclusion within these countries, as indicated by ethno-linguistic heterogeneity, which triggers both economic and psycho-social mechanisms to limit girls' schooling. Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity initially was applied to explaining lagging economic growth, but has emerged in the literature more recently to explain both civil conflict and public goods. This paper is a first application of the concept to explain gender gaps in education. The paper discusses the importance of female education for economic and social development, reviews the evidence regarding gender and ethnic differences in schooling, reviews the theoretical perspectives of various social science disciplines that seek to explain such differences, and tests the relevance of ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity in explaining cross-country differences in school attainment and learning. The study indicates that within-country ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity partly explains both national female primary school completion rates and gender differences in these rates, but only explains average national learning outcomes when national income measures are excluded. 2012-05-29T13:21:53Z 2012-05-29T13:21:53Z 2008-03 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/03/9086476/social-exclusion-gender-gap-education http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6498 English Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4562 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
EDUCATION
ETHNIC DIFFERENCES
GENDER GAP
LEARNING OUTCOMES
LINGUISTIC HETEROGENEITYPSYCHOSOCIAL LIMITATIONS
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
spellingShingle ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
EDUCATION
ETHNIC DIFFERENCES
GENDER GAP
LEARNING OUTCOMES
LINGUISTIC HETEROGENEITYPSYCHOSOCIAL LIMITATIONS
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
Lewis, Maureen
Lockheed, Marlaine
Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
relation Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4562
description Despite a sharp increase in the share of girls who enroll in, attend, and complete various levels of schooling, an educational gender gap remains in some countries. This paper argues that one explanation for this gender gap is the degree of social exclusion within these countries, as indicated by ethno-linguistic heterogeneity, which triggers both economic and psycho-social mechanisms to limit girls' schooling. Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity initially was applied to explaining lagging economic growth, but has emerged in the literature more recently to explain both civil conflict and public goods. This paper is a first application of the concept to explain gender gaps in education. The paper discusses the importance of female education for economic and social development, reviews the evidence regarding gender and ethnic differences in schooling, reviews the theoretical perspectives of various social science disciplines that seek to explain such differences, and tests the relevance of ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity in explaining cross-country differences in school attainment and learning. The study indicates that within-country ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity partly explains both national female primary school completion rates and gender differences in these rates, but only explains average national learning outcomes when national income measures are excluded.
format Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
author Lewis, Maureen
Lockheed, Marlaine
author_facet Lewis, Maureen
Lockheed, Marlaine
author_sort Lewis, Maureen
title Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
title_short Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
title_full Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
title_fullStr Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
title_full_unstemmed Social Exclusion and the Gender Gap in Education
title_sort social exclusion and the gender gap in education
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2012
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/03/9086476/social-exclusion-gender-gap-education
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6498
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