Gender stereotypes in France widen gap between boys and girls in math

Why are girls struggling in math? This is the question on everyone’s mind when reading the French results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), conducted in 2023, as it is every four years, in some 50 countries among pupils in fourth and eighth grade, and made public on Wednesday, December 4.

Along with Australia and Italy, France is one of the countries with the biggest performance gap between genders in fourth grade. There is a 23-point difference (496 points for boys and 473 points for girls), compared with 13 in the 2019 edition, representing a several-month difference in the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The gap between girls and boys is otherwise not significant in eighth grade.

These findings are in line with those of national assessments, taken at the start of each elementary school year and then in sixth, eighth and tenth grades. Between 2017 and 2024, the gaps between girls and boys widened, in sixth grade in particular: While the average score for girls remained stable, that for boys increased by 7 points. “In the 2010s, however, various studies showed no significant gap between girls and boys,” noted Clémence Perronnet, a sociologist.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The discrepancies start early, according to an analysis of these national assessments. While girls perform better at the start of elementary school, boys score better from first grade onward. This gap “can be observed in all social categories and family configurations, and across the whole country,” noted the Institute of Public Policy in a note on “Girls struggling in math as early as first grade,” published in January. For the institute, the explanation for these differences lies in the “weight of gender stereotypes that weigh heavily on pupils” and are “disseminated early and very widely within society.”

The French Ministry of Education agrees: “We need to work on the way girls think about mathematics,” because “when we talk about numbers in kindergarten, girls are just as comfortable as boys. When we start talking about mathematics in first grade, they lose confidence.” This lack of confidence has been widely documented by the Education Ministry’s statistical service.

In sixth grade, for example, the “feeling of efficiency” gap is 15 points in favor of boys in math. However, the difference in performance “closes completely when comparing boys and girls with similar levels of self-confidence and anxiety about this subject,” Nathalie Sayac, a university professor of mathematics didactics, found in her research articles on the subject.