PIER Public Seminar with sean reardon

Why have girls’ test scores declined relative to boys’ in recent years?

Girls’ test scores, particularly in math, fell more than boys’ scores during the pandemic, a pattern evident in NAEP data, in state assessment data, and in international assessments. We investigate the patterns of these declines using 15 years’ of test score data from 7000 U.S. school districts. We find that changes in math and reading gender gaps during the pandemic varied substantially across school districts. Girls’ scores declined much more than boys’ scores in communities with fewer economic, social, and educational resources and in communities where the impact of the pandemic was most severe – communities where schools were closed longer, where social interactions were more limited, and where COVID death rates were high. In more advantaged communities and those where the pandemic had less impact, gender gaps were largely unchanged on average. These patterns suggest ways that gendered social norms and expectations may interact with social crises and disruptions to exacerbate gender disparities in educational outcomes.

Authors: sean f reardon, Sadie Richardson, Sofia Wilson.

PIER PUBLIC SEMINAR SERIES | cepr.harvard.edu/pier-seminar | #PIERseminar

sean reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education; Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology, Stanford University

If you cannot join us in person, the event will also be livestreamed at: 

http://cepr.harvard.edu/pier-seminar

This event is accessible, free, and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-seated.