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Teenage girl at her desk: Say goodbye to the »rhetoric of pure talent«
Photo: Mint Images / IMAGO
According to a study based on Pisa data, girls all over the world tend to attribute school failure to a lack of personal talent significantly more than boys.
Paradoxically, this tendency is particularly pronounced in countries with a high degree of equality and among girls with very good school results, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science Advances.
For their investigation, the study authors used the results of the PISA study, in which the school abilities of 15-year-old schoolchildren worldwide are examined every three years.
In 2018, for the first time, more than 500,000 teenagers around the world were also confronted with the following statement: "If I fail, I fear it's because I don't have enough talent."
Result: In 71 of the 72 countries surveyed, girls tended to attribute a lack of talent to their failures, even if they did as well as boys in school.
Boys, on the other hand, tended to blame external factors for their failures.
Only in Saudi Arabia was this trend not observed.
While in the affluent countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 61 percent of girls agreed with the statement, only 47 percent of boys did so, i.e. 14 percentage points less.
In non-OECD countries, the difference was still there, but much smaller at eight percentage points.
There is no clear explanation for this gender difference in self-assessment, said the co-author of the study, Thomas Breda, of the AFP news agency.
However, this tendency has already been observed in the past, for example in self-confidence and in the choice of study programme, with the difference between boys and girls also being particularly pronounced in countries with high levels of equality.
focus on individual performance
This shows that "as countries develop, gender norms do not disappear but are reconfigured," said Breda.
One explanation for this is that more emancipatory societies focus more on individual achievements and value individual talent more.
According to the authors of the study, the lower level of confidence in girls' own abilities is not without consequences.
Because girls who first looked for the fault in themselves not only appear less self-confident, but also shy away from competition with others and therefore later work less frequently in respected and well-paid professions.
As a result, women often hit a "glass ceiling" in their careers, the study authors explained.
The results of their research also suggested “that the glass ceiling is unlikely to disappear as countries develop and become more equal”.
As a way out of this dilemma, Breda recommends saying goodbye to the »rhetoric of pure talent«.
»Success comes through learning through trial and error.«
sun/AFP
