Ethnicity and gender gaps in early childhood
Authors: Kirstine Hansen and Elizabeth M. Jones
Published in: British Educational Research Journal 37(6):
973-991, 2011
This paper reports on research looking at how almost 8,400
five-year-old boys and girls being tracked by the Millennium Cohort Study performed in a
series of vocabulary, picture similarities and pattern completion
tests. These tests measured verbal and non-verbal reasoning and
visual/spatial abilities. Among the findings are:
- Girls' average score was higher than boys' in each of the
ethnic groups the researchers studied - white, black, Indian,
Pakistani and Bangladeshi. However, the researchers found that the
size of the gender gap differed by ethnicity. Pakistani,
Bangladeshi and black girls were furthest ahead of boys from their
own ethnic background at age 5 while the gap between white and
Indian boys and girls was much narrower.
- In general, there were more girls than boys among the top 10%
of pupils and more boys than girls in the bottom 10%. But there
were interesting ethnic differences in this cohort of children born
in 2000/1.
- The researchers also looked at the Foundation Stage Profile
scores the children were given by class teachers in their first
year of school. The authors anticipated that the gender gaps in
favour of girls in these assessments would be even greater than in
the Millennium Cohort Study tests. Research has shown that girls
tend to do better than boys on teacher-rated continuous
assessments.
The researchers were also interested to see whether teachers'
perception of pupils' ability might be influenced by children's
ethnicity. They found that for most ethnic groups -- except
Pakistani and Bangladeshi children - the gender gap in favour of
girls was indeed greater for the teacher assessments than in the
Millennium Cohort Study tests. They also established that the
gender gap in teacher-assessed scores was very similar across all
ethnic groups.