School Environment and Gender Gap in Academic Self-Concepts

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  • 学業的自己概念の形成におけるジェンダーと学校環境の影響
  • ガクギョウテキ ジコ ガイネン ノ ケイセイ ニ オケル ジェンダー ト ガッコウ カンキョウ ノ エイキョウ

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Abstract

 Gender gaps in education have recently been changing, but remain substantial and persistent. While women have been attaining more and more equal levels of education with men, gender segregation by field of study is persistent and still high. To investigate these phenomena, this paper examines gender differences in mathematical and scientific academic achievements and self-concepts among Japanese high school students. Data for this study comes from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by OECD in 2003 and 2006, which are nationally representative samples from 15-year-old students. The effects of individual attributes and school environment on students’ academic self-concepts are estimated by applying a hierarchical linear model. The main findings are as follows.<br> First, academic self-concepts differ greatly by gender, although women on average have equal mathematical and scientific test scores with men. Gender gap in these self-concepts is substantial and women have lower academic self-concepts than men after controlling for the test scores. Second, students’ relative advantage in reading is negatively associated with science and math self-concepts. This means that students compare their math and science achievement with reading or other subjects’ achievement and assess their “comparative advantage”. Third, student background directly affects academic self-concept even after controlling for the test scores. For example, students with a parent in a science-related occupation tend to have a higher science academic self-concept than those without. This result implies that parents’ science-related occupations are role models for their children and encourages motivation and interests for science study.<br> In addition to these individual factors, school population characteristics are associated with academic self-concepts. Fourth, the school average test score is negatively associated with student academic self-concepts after controlling for student level achievement. This result is in line with the “Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect (BFLPE)” proposed by H. W. Marsh. Fifth, the gender composition of schools has an effect on students’ academic self-concepts in addition to student gender. In particular, girls who attend high schools with a student body roughly equally divided between boys and girls have lower math and science self-concepts. This suggests that interaction between girls and boys in daily school life contributes to the formation of gender stereotype in academic subjects. Results confirmed that not only students’ achievement but also gender, social background and school characteristics have an effect on the formation of academic self-concepts.

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