Girls Underperforming in Science: Evidences from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Abstract
Evidences from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan show girls’ out-performance and boys’ under-performance in school and colleges level examinations. Despite of girls' outstanding performance in school and college examination, they are not catching up with boys in science subjects in terms of achieving high grades. This paper aims to unpack the prevailing reasons of girls' under-performance in science subjects in elementary, secondary and higher secondary schools examinations in the capital city of Peshawar- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). It focuses on girls' underperformance in Elementary, Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary School Certificate Annual examinations of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Peshawar, KP. The article uses secondary and primary data. The secondary data consist of results records of BISE, Peshawar KP and primary data come from qualitative interviews with 20 school and college teachers (10 males & 10 females). The selection of teachers was done with the help of purposive sampling technique. The study comes up with diverse explanation for girls’ underperformance and boys’ outperformance in science subjects. The explanation encompasses the traditional beliefs in science subjects as masculine domain, gender stereotypes among parents, teachers, and the gendered belief about jobs opportunities available to boys and girls in socio-cultural context of KP. The findings of the study recommends that girls can do well in science subjects if they are given favorable and conducive environment.
Keywords:Education, Outperformance, Purposive Sampling, Science, Thematic analysis
References
Alexander, R. (2016). What’s the point? Select Committee Ponders the Meaning of Education. FORUM: For Promoting 3-19 Comprehensive Education, 58, 155–166.
Aronson, J., & McGlone, M. S. (2009). Stereotype and social identity threat. Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination, 153–178.
Aslam, M. (2009). Education gender gaps in Pakistan: Is the labor market to blame? Economic Development and Cultural Change, 57(4), 747–784.
Baker, D. P., & Jones, D. P. (1993). Creating gender equality: Cross-national gender stratification and mathematical performance. Sociology of Education, 91– 103.
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1977). Social learning theory (Vol. 1). Prentice- hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Burke, R. J., & Mattis, M. C. (2007). Women and minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: Upping the numbers. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Burridge, N., Whalan, F., & Vaughan, K. (2012). Indigenous education: A learning journey for teachers, schools and communities (Vol. 86). Springer Science & Business Media.
Ceci, S. J., & Williams, W. M. (2011). Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(8), 3157–3162.
Cheryan, S., Ziegler, S. A., Montoya, A. K., & Jiang, L. (2017). Why are some STEM fields more gender balanced than others? Psychological Bulletin, 143(1), 1.
Chiu, M. M., & Chow, B. W. Y. (2010). Culture, motivation, and reading achievement: High school students in 41 countries. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(6), 579–592.
Council, B. (1983). Media in education and development: A journal of the British Council. published for the council by P. Pregrinus Ltd.
Durrani, N., & Dunne, M. (2010). Curriculum and national identity: Exploring the links between religion and nation in Pakistan. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42(2), 215–240.
Goldin, C., Katz, L. F., & Kuziemko, I. (2006). The homecoming of American college women: The reversal of the college gender gap. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(4), 133–156.
Hedges, L. V., & Nowell, A. (1995). Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals. Science, 269(5220), 41–45.
Lindsey, L. L. (2015). Gender roles: A sociological perspective. Routledge.
Machin, S., & Pekkarinen, T. (2008). Global sex differences in test score variability. Science, 322(5906), 1331–1332.
Perez-Felkner, L., Nix, S., & Thomas, K. (2017). Gendered pathways: How mathematics ability beliefs shape secondary and postsecondary course and degree field choices. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 386.
Shams, F. (2017). Aid Effectiveness in Education: A Case Study of Pakistan From 2005-2015 [PhD Thesis]. UCL (University College London).
Smith, E. (2011). Women into science and engineering? Gendered participation in higher education STEM subjects. British Educational Research Journal, 37(6), 993–1014.
Thomson, S., Hillman, K., Wernert, N., Schmid, M., Buckley, S., & Munene, A. (2012). Monitoring Australian year 4 student achievement internationally: TIMSS and PIRLS 2011.
Ullah, R., & Ullah, H. (2019.). Boys versus girls’ educational performance: Empirical evidences from global north and global south.
Full Text: PDF
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.