GENDER DIFFERENCES IN BELIEFS AND ACHIEVEMENT - A CROSS-CULTURAL-STUDY

Gender differences on tests of achievement in reading and mathematics, and on tests of cognitive ability, were assessed. Ss were children in kindergarten and Grades 1 and 5 in elementary schools in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States (ns = 1,975 to 4,266). Few gender differences were observed on curriculum-based tests of mathematics computation and reading. Boys were more effective, however, in solving word problems and in answering questions involving estimation, visualization, and measurement. Cognitive tests revealed some gender differences at the 5th-grade level in all 3 cultures. Children and their mothers tended, as early as the 1st grade, to believe that boys were better at mathematics and girls were better at reading. Children in the 3 cultures differed consistently in their scores in reading and mathematics, but there were very few interactions between gender and location. The lack of frequent significant interactions between gender and location indicated the gender effects for both achievement scores and ratings were equivalent across Chinese, Japanese, and American contexts.