On girls in selective education

Raising questions about the gender gap in selective NSW schools

Straight off the bat, I have way more questions than answers on this topic, so this post is really just to start a dialogue about an area I’m really interested in as a Mother of Feminists. I’m curious about whether other Australian states see this kind of phenomenon - I know Victoria has a lot fewer selective schools in the first place; I’d be curious to know whether we see this in academic scholarship data; and whether the high stakes entry testing in other countries reflects the trends we see here.

I have friends in selective schools who have anecdotally been worried about the gender selection bias for years. I didn’t know that it was a known issue till I came across this report by the NSW Department of Education. I’ll shock you with some takeaways in visual form first.

I’m not surprised about the discrepancy in place offers. It turns out that the state-wide and persistent mathematical bias in the admission test wasn’t just an urban legend, spread among female selective school teachers. This comes up in the report itself. Again, anecdotally, I’m not sure much action has been taken in the intervening years between the 2018 publishing of the report and now.

I also think it’s worth at least looking at whether the gender variability hypothesis should be seriously investigated. Straight from Wikipedia but a good starting point is this explanation.

The variability hypothesis, also known as the greater male variability hypothesis, is the hypothesis that males generally display greater variability in traits than females do.

It has often been discussed in relation to human cognitive ability, where some studies appear to show that males are more likely than females to have either very high or very low IQ test scores. In this context, there is controversy over whether such sex-based differences in the variability of intelligence exist, and if so, whether they are caused by genetic differences, environmental conditioning, or a mixture of both.

The hypothesis in relation to selective education streams is that there may be a greater volume of gifted boys (and conversely boys with learning support needs) than girls, even when average intelligence is fairly equal. I’m developing a keen interest in education and biology, and I know that people can really react to the question of biological differences between the sexes, but if it’s something that’s keeping our girls out of STEM and out of educational opportunities, then I want to know more.

I have really mixed feelings about artificially manipulating entry, the meritocracy and intelligence-fetishism, and all the messy ethical questions that come with this territory. But since the gender pay gap is real, should we be putting more energy into addressing the gender opportunity gap that begins as early as primary school? Like the Wikipedia article says, if it turns out to be environmentally explained, then we should be treating this as a matter of urgency.

The thing that really surprised me was that girls are more likely to decline offers. There are 64 girls schools in NSW vs 56 boys, but four fully selective girls schools and only three boys. Are parents of girls choosing single sex, which research shows to be more beneficial? What other possible reasons could parents have for going through with that entire process, only to decline?

I realise that NSW public school teachers are not allowed to speak publicly about what they experience. But if you do have an anonymous experience or observation you would like to share, I would love to hear from you. These are genuine questions and I’d love to publish a follow-up that might not be the official party line but would give valuable insight into why our girls are being hobbled before they are even out of the gate.