Girls found to beat boys in mother tongue already in second grade
Less gender differentiation in mathematical skills
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A study by the Finnish National Board of Education indicates that girls outperform boys in the mother tongue after the second year of comprehensive school.
Gender differences are especially apparent in writing skills. Girls were found to find solutions to an average two thirds of writing assignments, as opposed to one half for boys.
Kirsi Lindroos, Director-General of the National Board of Education, wants more information on why there are differences in scholastic achievement between boys and girls at such an early age.
Attitudes of boys toward the mother tongue are more negative than those of girls already after the second grade. Even in schools where boys are skilled in the mother tongue (Finnish or Swedish), their attitudes toward the subject are more negative than those of the girls.
"Is the school’s atmosphere in the background? Perhaps different things are expected of the boys than from the girls", Lindroos ponders.
Previous studies by the National Board of Education suggest that gender roles are reflected in pupil evaluation to some extent.
Tuulamarja Huisman, who drafted the report, calls for more versatile working methods in the teaching of writing skills in order to appeal to those who find writing a chore.
The most recent survey involved nearly 6,000 third graders around the country. The tests, conducted in the autumn of 2005, applied to the mother tongue and literature, as well as mathematics.
Skills in both subjects were at a satisfactory level, and regional differences were minor.
However, there were significant differences between individual schools.
In more than half of the schools, command of the mother tongue was satisfactory, but results varied between 42 and 81 per cent of the maximum score. In mathematics, the variation was 31 to 80 per cent.
Boys and girls showed fairly equal skills in mathematics. Algebra was the most problematic for third-graders, bringing the greatest variation in results. Boys were slightly better at algebra than girls.
Although the curriculum calls for establishing skills in explaining solutions to mathematical problems, the pupils tested were not very good at it.
Nearly one third of teachers felt that the requirements set in the curriculum of 2004 for both mathematics and the mother tongue are too demanding.
Huisman says that class teachers would need supplementary training, as most of them have only a very basic background in teaching those two subjects.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 13.2.2007 - TODAY |
 Girls found to beat boys in mother tongue already in second grade
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