Work Alienation among IT Workers: A Cross-Cultural Gender Comparison

Information Technology (IT) has experienced a worrisome decline in female participation over two decades, much of which can be attributed to fewer women choosing IT careers. However, women IT professionals also demonstrate mid-career turnover for reasons such as work-life balance, work exhaustion, role ambiguity, role conflict, and growth needs. This study explores alienation among women IT professionals and examines factors that lead to work alienation and abandonment of IT careers. Such alienation appears to be less prevalent in Asian countries where women perceive IT careers to be more conducive to female participation. A comparison among women from American and Asian cultures is proposed

Sex differences in mathematics and reading achievement are inversely related: within- and across-nation assessment of 10 years of PISA data

We analyzed one decade of data collected by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), including the mathematics and reading performance of nearly 1.5 million 15 year olds in 75 countries. Across nations, boys scored higher than girls in mathematics, but lower than girls in reading. The sex difference in reading was three times as large as in mathematics. There was considerable variation in the extent of the sex differences between nations. There are countries without a sex difference in mathematics performance, and in some countries girls scored higher than boys. Boys scored lower in reading in all nations in all four PISA assessments (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009). Contrary to several previous studies, we found no evidence that the sex differences were related to nations’ gender equality indicators. Further, paradoxically, sex differences in mathematics were consistently and strongly inversely correlated with sex differences in reading: Countries with a smaller sex difference in mathematics had a larger sex difference in reading and vice versa. We demonstrate that this was not merely a between-nation, but also a within-nation effect. This effect is related to relative changes in these sex differences across the performance continuum: We did not find a sex difference in mathematics among the lowest performing students, but this is where the sex difference in reading was largest. In contrast, the sex difference in mathematics was largest among the higher performing students, and this is where the sex difference in reading was smallest. The implication is that if policy makers decide that changes in these sex differences are desired, different approaches will be needed to achieve this for reading and mathematics. Interventions that focus on high-achieving girls in mathematics and on low achieving boys in reading are likely to yield the strongest educational benefits

Gender and participation in mathematics and further mathematics A-levels: a literature review for the Further Mathematics Support Programme

In preparing this report I have considered evidence from over 60 documents that relate to raising girls’ participation in mathematics. These include published research papers and reports compiled by expert bodies that present an evidence base. Although research specifically addressing Further Mathematics A-level is rare, the last ten years have seen considerable efforts to synthesise and update knowledge from different research perspectives about the relationship between gender and participation. For this reason, the review process started with papers from 2008 onwards

British male students continue to fall behind in secondary school achievement

It is common knowledge that boys fall behind in school performance, and UK policy makers have addressed this issue in the past decade. In fact, they seem committed to narrowing gender gaps of any kind. This paper asks whether actual progress has been made in reducing the degree to which boys fall behind, and also whether gender differences in subject preference have changed in the period 2001 to 2013. Using an analysis of British secondary-education exam data and a comparison with data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it is concluded that no progress has been made: Boys attained fewer top grades in nearly all school subjects. Further, boys and girls continue to choose elective school subjects along traditional interest lines. The problem of boys falling behind is obscured by the finding that grades of all children have risen considerably in this period. However, a comparison of Mathematics and English exam grades with PISA data suggests that this rise is due to grade inflation, not real improvement. The paper closes with recommendations for solutions

Young people's leisure and risk-taking behaviours: changes in gender patterning in the West of Scotland during the 1990s

Until the 1990s, the literature on youth leisure characterized that of females as home-based, passive and largely absent from male-dominated subcultures. Contrasting with this, over the course of the 1990s, evidence emerged of increasing public visibility, reduced restrictions on activities and relatively greater increases in health-risk behaviours among females, together with suggestions of a domestification of leisure among males This paper uses data from two cohorts of 15 year olds in the same geographical area (the West of Scotland), separated by 12 years (1987 and 1999) to examine changes in the gender patterning of young people's leisure, use of public space and risk taking (as represented by substance use) over this time period. Gender differences in 'street-based' (previously more males) and 'conventional/safe' (previously more females) leisure disappeared over this period while male excesses in watching sports and playing computer games increased. At the same time, female levels of drinking and experience of illicit drugs reached, and those of smoking overtook, their male counterparts. Additional analyses showed that changes in leisure activities over time accounted in part for the changing gender patterns in substance use. The paper discusses how greater public visibility and increased risk-taking behaviours among females have resulted from the lifting of constraints of respectability on young women's life- styles. These changes have been rapid and have significance in both social and health terms