Gender And Education Research Articles

Labor market in the UK in digital era: The gender dimension

The article considers gender discrimination in the field of labor relations in the United Kingdom (UK) in the pre-covid period. In the past decades, the Western European countries have made the most significant progress in achieving gender equality in various fields, including labor relations, and became the world leader in this area. However, despite all the efforts of the international community, no country has achieved a full gender equality, and Great Britain is no exception. The authors argue that the British anti-discrimination legislation (before leaving the European Union) was based on international acts and conventions. For a long time, there were acts and laws prohibiting discrimination in the labor market, which seriously hindered the implementation of an effective anti-discrimination policy in the sphere of labor relations. It was not until 2010 that the law on equality was passed to replace all previous laws and regulations and to provide an exhaustive list of criteria for prohibiting discrimination. As a result, Great Britain began to develop a rather strict national anti-discrimination legislation in the field of labor relations. Thus, in the past decades, the UK has been achieving gender equality in the economic sphere at a faster pace than the average European Union country. The study shows a steady decline in the gender wage gap in the UK over the past two decades, which may be considered one of the countrys most significant achievements in fighting gender discrimination in the labor market. However, there is still a number of serious challenges: a relatively low female labor force participation and employment rate, a gender wage gap and income gap, horizontal and vertical segregation, a gender gap in postgraduate education, and a significant gender gap in time spent on family responsibilities. Age discrimination presents a special problem in the sphere of labor relations in Great Britain. In the European Union, the first laws prohibiting age discrimination were adopted only in the 2000s, and in the UK - in 2006. This problem still remains extremely acute for the labor market, since age discrimination in the UK ranks third among the most common grounds for discrimination - after gender and disability.

Gender equality and economic complexity

This study is the first attempt to examine the influence of gender equality on economic complexity. Specifically, we investigate the effects of four aspects (employment, health, education, rights) of gender equality with 20 variables in an economic complexity index. To deal with potential endogeneity, we used the two-step system–generalized method of moments approach with an unbalanced panel of data on 119 economies from 1991 to 2017. First, labor participation in industry or service sectors as well as wage and salaried employment by women appears to improve economic complexity, while women’s employment in agriculture, contributions to family workers, self-employment, and vulnerable employment have a negative impact. Second, better health conditions for women increase economic complexity. Third, gender equality in education has a positive impact on economic complexity. Fourth, the empowerment of women in terms of socioeconomic-political rights is a positive factor for economic complexity. Overall, gender equality has great benefits for economic complexity.

Educational attainment of same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins: An individual-level pooled study of 19 twin cohorts

Comparing twins from same- and opposite-sex pairs can provide information on potential sex differences in a variety of outcomes, including socioeconomic-related outcomes such as educational attainment. It has been suggested that this design can be applied to examine the putative role of intrauterine exposure to testosterone for educational attainment, but the evidence is still disputed. Thus, we established an international database of twin data from 11 countries with 88,290 individual dizygotic twins born over 100 years and tested for differences between twins from same- and opposite-sex dizygotic pairs in educational attainment. Effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated by linear regression models after adjusting for birth year and twin study cohort. In contrast to the hypothesis, no difference was found in women (β = −0.05 educational years, 95% CI −0.11, 0.02). However, men with a same-sex co-twin were slightly more educated than men having an opposite-sex co-twin (β = 0.14 educational years, 95% CI 0.07, 0.21). No consistent differences in effect sizes were found between individual twin study cohorts representing Europe, the USA, and Australia or over the cohorts born during the 20th century, during which period the sex differences in education reversed favoring women in the latest birth cohorts. Further, no interaction was found with maternal or paternal education. Our results contradict the hypothesis that there would be differences in the intrauterine testosterone levels between same-sex and opposite-sex female twins affecting education. Our findings in men may point to social dynamics within same-sex twin pairs that may benefit men in their educational careers.

The Efficacy of SECI Model for the Training of High School Teachers in Relation to Gender Equality in Vietnam

Vietnamese government policy has been one of complete equality of opportunity in schools and in wider society, both as a commitment to social justice and as a way of enhancing the economy of the nation by facilitating and encouraging much greater inclusion of women in economic activity. One of the main aims of the work was to trial programmes of training for teachers and teacher education students about gender equality in education using the model of Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation (SECI), first developed in Japan, which integrates knowledge acquisition with social learning activities (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). The response to the programme of training using the SECI model was positive, suggesting that this approach may be an effective model for both Initial Teacher Education and Continuing Professional Development for High School Teachers in Vietnam.

Educational Gender Inequality in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Long‐Term Perspective

AbstractTo what extent did sub‐Saharan Africa's twentieth century schooling revolution benefit boys and girls equally? Using census data and a cohort approach, we examine gender gaps in years of education over the twentieth century at world region, country and district levels. First, we find that compared to other developing regions, Africa had a small initial educational gender gap but subsequently made the least progress in closing the gap. Second, in most of the 21 African countries studied, gender gaps increased during most of the colonial era (ca. 1880–1960) and declined, albeit at different rates, after independence. At the world region and country level, the expansion of men's education was initially associated with a growing gender gap, and subsequently a decline, a pattern we refer to as “educational gender Kuznets curve.” Third, using data from six decadal cohorts across 1,177 birth districts, we explore subnational correlates of educational gender inequality. This confirms the inverse‐U relationship between the gender gap and male education. We also find that districts with railroads, more urbanization and early twentieth century Christian missions witnessed lower attainment gaps. We find no evidence that cash crop cultivation, agricultural division of labor or family systems were linked to gender gaps.

Visual representations of women in a Jamaican science textbook: perpetuating an outdated, sexist ideology

ABSTRACT The gender gap in post-compulsory science education remains a key concern for educators in many countries. Over the last two decades significant effort has been placed in a number of initiatives aimed not only at raising the profile of science in schools, but also at widening female participation. Despite these initiatives, the rate of female participation in science has typically remained below that of males. Although many reasons have been advanced to explain this, visual representations in school science textbooks remain under-researched. Against a background of gender disparity in the Jamaican education system, this article examines the extent to which visual representations in a widely used school science textbook reinforce or ameliorate gender stereotypes. The results indicate that the textbook presents implicit support for gender-biased messages, though in ways that are more subtle than might be supposed. There were a number of ways in which the images did not favour males over females but there were also other ways in which males were more likely to be portrayed as powerful and in high-status ‘positions’, while females were more likely to be depicted in inferior situations. Such gender representations may affect how students see themselves in relation to science.

DOES THE CHOICE OF LANGUAGE IN TESTS HAVE AN IMPACT ON GENDER EQUALITY IN PRIMARY EDUCATION? A CASE STUDY IN SENEGAL

Purpose: The present study analyses the possible impact on gender equality when using a language familiar to students in tests at primary schools in Sub-Saharan Africa where a European language is the unique medium of instruction and assessment.
 Methodology: To this aim, students at grades 3 and 6 (83 girls and 66 boys) in primary schools in rural Senegal were given two different tests: Mathematics problem-solving tasks and multiple-choice questions of Social Sciences. They were divided at random into a control group if they received the tests in Seerer, the local language familiar to them, or French, the sole official language in the Senegalese education system. After data collection, results were codified for analysis considering two variables: Gender and grade. First, we calculated both the percentage of students who scored the set mark and those who obtained the highest scores. Second, we checked for statistically significant differences between groups by means of One-Way-ANOVA and Tukey tests.
 Findings: Although Seerer as language of tests was found to benefit both genders, results suggest that its use may especially determine girls’ success at school: Girls in the experimental group obtained higher results than girls in the control group, especially the youngest, and many reached the highest scores.
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: Findings suggest that first, the use of a language familiar to students in tests seems to have positive effects on their academic results, and second, that it may play a role in bridging the gap between genders in some education models thanks to the evident benefits for girls, especially young ones. Such results might be taken into consideration by education authorities together with other existing examples to introduce local languages in the education system of Senegal and other Sub-Saharan countries where only a European language is employed, as it seems to contribute to reaching gender equality in education. We suggest that local languages could be used in tests from the lower levels of primary education in bilingual programs, thus favouring transfer of linguistic skills and content from the local to the European language, and increasing school success

Digital gender gap in university education in Spain. Study of a case for paired samples

This article presents a research with the aim of analyzing the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to promote the empowerment, entrepreneurship, and leadership of women in today's society. We examine the digital gender gap in undergraduate studies in Spain by branch of education and its relationship with the rate of affiliation to the Social Security of graduates of Degree and Cycle after one, two and three years from the completion of their university studies. It is completed with a case study for samples paired with a quasi-experimental method, to determine if the alternative hypothesis of gender inequality in the means of grades, as an assessment of academic performance, could be accepted between two orientations of the subject taught. The results showed, in the experimental group, a higher motivation and in learning higher scores, compared to the control group, not finding statistically significant gender differences in academic performance. As a conclusion, we propose the transformation of teaching-learning methodologies for greater student involvement and more meaningful and relevant learning that contributes to the disappearance of the digital gender gap and empowers women.

Mixed Method Study on the Effect of Gender Equality Education for Military Cadets

Mixed Method Study on the Effect of Gender Equality Education for Military Cadets

The Effects of Growth on Women’s Employment in Pakistan

This article seeks to clarify the effect of growth on gender equality for the case of Pakistan, a country that has seen periods of high growth alongside the persistence of stark gender inequalities. The paper addresses this aim by estimating gendered sectoral employment elasticities of growth for the period 1984–2017 and investigates their drivers. It finds that the secular trend toward productivity-driven growth since the turn of the millennium has lowered the responsiveness of men’s employment to growth impulses in particular. For women, factors related to Pakistan’s gender order are more relevant. Greater gender parity in education enables women to benefit from growth in the form of better employment access. The reverse is the case for improvements in relative women’s life expectancy, understood as indicative of their social status. The paper interprets the related effect as a reduction in the precarity of women’s employment associated with improved status. HIGHLIGHTS Employment dividends of growth are realized in a highly gender-differentiated way. Pakistan’s gender order mediates women’s volatile employment responses to growth. We use excess women’s mortality as an indicator for Pakistan’s gender order. Women workers bear the brunt of recessions through the loss and precarity of jobs. Education is especially relevant in reducing women’s employment precarity.

Leveraging Women’s Leadership Talent to Promote a Social Justice Agenda in Ethiopian Schools

Background: Research that identifies and celebrates the positive attributes of women educational leaders advancing a social justice agenda in traditionally male-dominated, Sub-Saharan African (SSA) societies is sparse. Studying female educational leadership in SSA conceptually brings to the fore issues associated with the intersectionality of gender, leadership, pervasive abject poverty, and cultural mores from a critical theory lens that runs counter to the White, western, male conceptions of leadership underlying much of the existing literature in the field. Purpose: With a focus on Ethiopia, we sought to understand the way in which women educational leaders, as traditionally oppressed groups in a patriarchal society, utilize their past marginalization as they advance a social justice agenda to promote educational opportunities for traditionally underserved students, particularly females. Research Design: Using transformative leadership as our theoretical lens and semi-structured interviews as our methodology, we conducted a grounded phenomenological study of eight Ethiopian women who were in educational leadership positions ranging from assistant principal to regional supervisors. We recruited the women leaders through direct contact, reputational nomination, and leadership positions they held. Findings/Results: Our findings paint a portrait of these female leaders as tenacious and determined, with a strong sense of self-agency and moral courage, whose identities are born out of their humble beginning and multi-focal understanding of issues from being female, from poor communities, submersed in male-dominated culture. These identities drove the participants to work towards emancipatory policies to acknowledge and intervene in “power differences” that directly influence school performance for girls and women in Ethiopia. Conclusions/Recommendations: Increasing workforce diversity with respect to gender, recasting leadership preparation programs as equity-oriented institutions, and addressing key public policies to support women in leadership positions are foundational recommendations that can lead to gender equity in education in Ethiopia.

Does energy poverty matter for gender inequality? Global evidence

Gender inequality has improved slightly over recent decades, but it is still a critical issue across the globe, especially in developing countries. This study investigates the influence of energy poverty reduction on gender inequality, using a sample of 51 developing countries from 2002 to 2017 and considering four dimensions: employment, health, education, and socio-political-economic rights. By applying a two-step system generalised method of moments estimator to deal with endogeneity, the results are shown to be statistically robust. Reduction in energy poverty appears to increase employment opportunities for women, especially in industry and service sectors, which results in an improvement in the number of female wage and salaried workers in comparison with their male counterparts. Energy poverty reduction is also found to re-balance gender inequality in health indicators. Notably, reduced energy poverty is an influential factor in gender equality in education and socio-economic rights. The results are checked for robustness by five different proxies of energy poverty reduction and different estimate strategies. Based on these findings, the governments of developing countries should focus principally on alleviating energy poverty as the first and most crucial policy to curb gender inequality.

Gender Dalam Pendidikan Islam: Sebuah Refleksi

Gender issues become a very serious issue today. This is identified by a number of discourses on the women’s equal rights and men. Although the actual focus of gender studies is not limited to aspects of women, but also men. But in fact, the figure who is often marginalized is women. On the other hand, men often get more privileges in terms of rights and opportunities. Therefore, this discussion focuses on gender studies of women's aspects by comparing men's rights. Indonesian citizens have the particular rights to receive education, especially Islamic education. This paper designed to describe the problems of gender in education, the theoretical lens of Islamic education on gender equality, as well as the strategy towards gender equality in education.

“Why can't you sit still?”The effect of daily physical activity on childhood inattention/hyperactivity and the educational gender gap

Despite the compelling evidence of the long-run consequences of childhood inattention/hyperactivity and harmful side effects of stimulant medication, relatively little is known about accessible non-pharmacological options to reduce inattentive/hyperactive behaviours. This study evaluates the effect of daily exercise on inattentive/hyperactive behaviours among young children by leveraging evidence from a quasi-experiment generated when 3 Canadian provinces adopted mandatory requirements for all students in grades 1 through 6 to participate in 20–30 min of daily physical activity at school between 1994 and 2009. By exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the timing of implementation and duration of physical activity mandated as well as over 20,000 observations on a sample of nationally representative children, our difference-in-differences estimates indicate that brief bouts of daily exercise at school effectively reduce inattention/hyperactivity in children – with the beneficial effect enhanced by the duration of exercise mandated. Importantly, most of the exercise effect is concentrated on boys. Since boys' higher rates of inattention/hyperactivity contribute to the explanation for boys’ lagging academic motivation and achievement, we argue that providing more scope for physical activity during the school day might be a feasible policy option not only for reducing inattentive/hyperactive behaviours, but also for helping to close the educational gender gap in the longer run.

Importance of Human Development and Challenges

Vietnam has achieved many achievements in human development, which is reflected in the increase in HDI rankings, increase in component indexes as well as HDI value, the growth rate of HDI among the highest in the world but there are many challenges that Vietnam needs to overcome to get higher HDI. This research collected and analyzed secondary data to analyze, compare and evaluate data on HDI, IHDI, inequality, gender gap, disparities in regions and people groups and some other related indicators to indicate Viet Nam's achievements in human development since 1990, and more importantly, the study identified challenges in gender gaps, disparities in regions and people groups. In order to overcome these challenges and increase HDI much more, based on the analysis of the state of Vietnam's human development and its challenges, the study proposed some policy suggestions such as: (1) Closing the gender gap in education and labor participation; (2) Reducing disparities among regions and population groups; (3). Improving the access ability to education and health care for the poor; (4) Improving people's income and quality of life.

Educational gender inequality in the Muslim world: A problem of a cultural heritage, religion, or modernization?

AbstractObjectiveThe difference between the Muslim and non‐Muslim world in terms of educational gender equality has been blamed on the Islamic faith, and sometimes on a lack of modernization. Thus, I examine how Islam reduces educational gender equality and how/if its influence varies from one Muslim country to another.MethodI use Time‐series–cross‐section (TSCS) analysis for 29 Muslim countries between 1980 and 2010 to examine the influence of Arab culture on educational gender parity.ResultThe result indicates that the religious culture of Arab states seems to be highly associated with the educational gender gap. Also, the positive effect of modernization is more significant in Non‐Arab Muslim countries than in Arab Muslim countries.ConclusionThese findings are informative to educational policymakers since they explain why the international and local efforts on improving educational gender equality have not been as successful in the Muslim world as is the case in other societies.

Women Education in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects

The goal of education is to equip, enlighten and develop both men and women with relevant skills, norms, values, and knowledge. In spite of various educational strides and declaration targeted towards ensuring equity at various levels of education there has been constant inequality mostly in the representation of women in the Nigerian education system. Some of the major factors identified to have hindered gender parity in Nigeria education are culture and parental preference among others. This implies that the fundamental human rights of some individuals are being denied hence, limited towards national building and development. However, recent statistics on various levels of education in Nigeria show a great level of improvement in the enrollment of women in education. In view of this acknowledgment, this paper gives an overview of the trends of women education in Nigeria, highlighting its challenges and prospects for equal and sustainable educational attainment. It recommends among others the need for enlightenment of both genders towards ensuring gender parity in education, enacting new policies that emphasize the inclusion of females in education through quota system, formation of formidable support group towards women empowerment especially towards education.

Predictors of the Level of Knowledge about Sexual Harassment and Assault among College Students: A Chi-Squared Automatic Interaction Detection Analysis

This study aims to determine college students’ levels of knowledge about sexual harassment and assault, and to identify the predictors of this level of knowledge. Participants have been selected using a multi-stage sampling method and consist of 7,302 college students from a state college in Turkey. The age of participants ranged from 17 years to 29 years with a mean age of 21.33 years (SD = 2.04). The Sexual Harassment and Assault Knowledge Test, the Survey of College Students’ Exposure to Sexual Harassment and Assault, and a socio-demographic form were used to obtain data from the sample. The two-steps cluster analysis revealed that 70.2 % of the all participants had moderate level of knowledge about sexual harassment and assault, while 13.6 % had a low level of knowledge and 16.2 % had high level of knowledge. The CHAID analysis indicated that sex was the main predictor of level of knowledge about sexual harassment and assault. Also, exposure to sexual harassment or assault, dating experience, and having gender-equality education were found as other predictor variables. Finally, classification accuracy of the CHAID model was found 79.5 % within the sample.

Does Gender Inequality Affect Economic Growth? Empirics from Asian Countries.

Background: Gender inequality is present in our society in different areas of life. Moreover, world organizations acknowledge the importance of gender inequality control and list it as one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Though the standing of gender inequality cannot be denied as a social issue, it is vital to analyze its impact on other areas as well. This study specifically analyzes the impact of gender inequality in education on economic growth and how gender inequality can affect economies' short-run and long-run potential.Methodology: This study examines the extent and dimensions to which gender inequality affects the economic growth of Asian countries. The study employs an annual dataset from 2003-2018 comprised of 48 Asian countries. World Bank data set is used. Panel data analysis is the basis of the study. The empirical analysis begins with a fixed / random effect. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was also used to check the robustness of initial results.Results: This study shows that gender inequality at the tertiary level of education affects the economic growth in the selected Asian countries. Since gender inequality at the tertiary level of education is directly associated with the quality of gender mix in the labour market, its impact is reflected in this empirical work. However, gender parity in education at the primary level was found not to be significant in its contribution to GDP growth. Though the impact of gender inequality at the primary level is not found to be statistically significant, reasonably, this inequality will result in a lower potential in the long run. In all the models having population growth, the impact of gender parity was found to be positive.Conclusion: This study concluded that reducing gender inequality on the tertiary level of education positively affects economic growth. Moreover, the study emphasizes that there is a necessity to increase women's education and lowering gender inequality at different levels of educational attainment to boost long-run and short-run economic potential.

Prevalence of the student's gender in their daily interactions with devices on the Internet

The health crisis caused by COVID-19 views technological innovation as a way to improve equity in education. Gender differences in education are under constant investigation due to the long-term consequences on the personal and professional future of students. The goal of this work is to analyze the prevalence of the student's gender in their daily interactions with devices on the Internet. Supported by a comparative education research methodology. A representative sample of a population of students of Spain, countries of the EU (European Union) and theOECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) are contrasted. The regression analysis and an adjustment by coefficient of determination determined the intensity of the dependency relationship between the independent variables: daily participation in social networks, daily participation in online games, daily reading of online news and the dependent variable is the average mathematical score. The results are compared with other investigations conducted in virtual teaching and learning environments. In fact, there are patterns of behavior and responses of students when considering gender differences in their daily interactions with devices on the Internet. This work highlights the importance of a gender approach to improve virtual educational proposals.