Gender educational gap is among the most debated topics in the field of educational studies. International standardized tests such as PISA and TIMSS highlight that in several countries girls outperform boys in reading whereas the latter get higher scores in mathematics (OECD, 2015). For what concerns grades, certain authors underline that in reading, mathematics and science boys who perform equally as well as girls get a lower grade and this less favourable treatment disappears when non cognitive skills are considered (Cornwell et al., 2013). Indeed, there is evidence that teachers’ grading practices do not only reflect the objective level of skills achieved by students, but also the perceived students’ effort, motivation, and even their behaviour (Bowers, 2011) and girls, which are more  often reported to possess better social skills and to be more conscientious (Perander et al., 2020), self-disciplined (Duckworth and Seligman, 2006) and engaged in class activities (Van Houtte, 2020) would be rewarded with higher grades (Cornwell et al., 2013). Other authors have found no evidence of discrimination against boys (Hinerrich et al., 2010), whereas other studies have put into evidence teachers’ gender-stereotyped belief about math ability according to which boys are more logical than girls and the latter are less mathematically inclined (Tomasetto, 2019; Giberti, 2019). This belief on one side leads to girls’ underconfidence in mathematics and to their failure in achieving their full potential (Carlana, 2019), on the other side it can create a sort of positive discrimination in favours of girls as teachers would over-assess them to encourage them in a discipline in which they are considered weaker (Terrier, 2020).

This contribution is aimed at examining whether girls attending the last year of the primary school in the Swiss canton of Ticino are given a different grade in mathematics than boys with the same mathematical skills. Skills are, in this case, measured by a score obtained in a math standardized test administered to the whole population cohort (ca. 3,000 pupils) in the school year 2020/21. Grading biases can be traditionally studied by means of a systematic comparison between grades delivered by teachers and the results in standardized tests for the same year of schooling that measure students' objective skills (Hoge & Colardaci, 1989).

Ticino is a particularly interesting area to investigate as, differently from most of the cantons, which adopt a selective school system, it is characterized by a relatively comprehensive school system in which tracking is postponed to the 8th grade (and limited to two subjects, German and mathematics). Despite a later and less pronounced curricular differentiation is normally associated with a lower gender segregation in higher education (Imdorf et al., 2015) and despite the smaller educational gap compared to the other cantons, a remarkable horizontal segregation, which is clearly visible both in the upper secondary schools (in the high school and in vocational training) and in tertiary education, distinguishes Ticino (Zanolla, in press). As it is known horizontal segregation in education leads to an underrepresentation of women in the most rewarding scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) occupations (Herbaut & Barone, 2021). Teachers ‘assessments might have a part of responsibility as, as literature has widely shown, grades affect students’ motivation, self-concept and effort in education and influence their subsequent educational choices and outcomes (Carlana, 2019).

In order to understand whether being a girl influences the mathematics grade in the last year of the primary school, a multilevel model has been developed. Students' grading is likely to be affected by their personal characteristics, as gender, but also by the context in which it takes place (Leckholm, 2011). The multilevel model, developed in the early 1980s to address the fundamental issue of the interaction between individuals and their environment, includes both control variables referring to the pupils (economic, social and cultural status, age, mother tongue, behaviour grade in the school final report and the score in the above-mentioned math standardized test) and to their class (average score obtained by the class in the math standardized test, teacher’s gender and teacher’s type of contract – full or part-time; other variables such as the social composition of the class and its size and teachers’ working seniority were tested and excluded because their effect was not significant). The analysis has involved 2,238 children from 181 primary school classes (the entire cohort of children enrolled in the fifth and final year of public primary school in Ticino has been considered, except for children attending multigrade classes). Mathematics grade as well as the other variables included in the model are contained in the database of the GAGI application (Gestione Allievi Gestione Istituti - Pupil Management, Institute Management) run by the Ticino Department of Education, Culture and Sport, which contains relevant social and personal details for all primary and secondary school students in Ticino, as well as the training they take part in for each school year, the grades achieved in each subject, number of absences, end-of-year results, etc. and socio-anagraphic information concerning their teachers. The math standardized test was created on appointment of the Ticino Department of Education, Culture and Sport by a team of researchers, local experts in maths and teachers from primary and lower secondary schools, with the goal to provide political decision-makers with information for monitoring the education system and teachers, head teachers and inspectors with detailed information regarding trends in their classrooms and schools.

The multilevel analysis shows that, other things being equal, girls achieve a lower grade in mathematics than boys. However, although the effect of gender is statistically significant, it remains small (Cohen f2 < 0.02). The only variable that has a large effect (Cohen f2 ≥ 0.35) is the pupil's result in the standardized test, i.e., the greater the pupil's ability in mathematics, the higher the grade. This result illustrates the fact that the teacher's judgment of a student's academic performance, of which the grade is the expression, is, on average, strongly linked to objective academic performance even if there is a great variability from one teacher to another. The behaviour grade also has a positive impact on the mathematics grade, but once again the effect is small. The pupil's disadvantaged social background, the age, and the average academic level of the class in mathematics exert instead a small negative effect, whereas the pupil’s mother tongue, the gender of the teacher and the type of contract of the latter do not play any significant effect. This analysis constitutes the starting point of a broader study on the teachers’ concepts about grades and the criteria they use for attributing grades, which has the aim of trying to open the black box behind the evaluation outcome. This study will also constitute an opportunity to investigate the gender stereotypes of primary and lower secondary school teachers in the Canton of Ticino.

Bowers, A. J. (2011). What's in a Grade? The Multidimensional Nature of What Teacher-assigned Grades Assess in High School. Educational Research and Evaluation, 17(3), 141-159. Cornwell, C., Mustard, D. B., & Van Parys, J. (2013). Noncognitive Skills and the Gender Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments. Journal of Human resources, 48(1), 236-264. Carlana, M. (2019). Implicit Stereotypes: Evidence from Teachers’ Gender Bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1163-1224. Duckworth, A. L. & Seligman, M. E. (2006). Self-discipline Gives Girls the Edge: Gender in Self-discipline, Grades, and Achievement Test Scores. Journal of educational psychology, 98(1), 198. Giberti, C. (2019). Differenze di Genere in Matematica: dagli Studi Internazionali alla Situazione Italiana. Didattica della matematica, (5), 44-69. Herbaut, E., & Barone, C. (2021). Explaining Gender Segregation in Higher Education: Longitudinal Evidence on the French Case. British Journal of sociology of Education, 42(2), 260-286. Hinnerich, B. T., E. Höglin, and M. Johannesson (2011). Are Boys Discriminated in Swedish High Schools? Economics of Education Review, 30 (4): 682–690. Hoge, R. D., & Coladarci, T. (1989). Teacher-Based Judgments of Academic Achievement: A Review of Literature. Review of Educational Research, 59(3), 297–313. Imdorf, C., Hegna, K., Eberhard, V., & Doray, P. (2015): Educational Systems and Gender Segregation in Education – A Three-Country Comparison of Germany, Norway & Canada. In C. Imdorf, K. Hegna, & L. Reisel (Eds.), Gender Segregation in Vocational Education (Vol. 32, pp. 83-122). Bingley: Emerald Insight. Lekholm, A. K. (2011). Effects of School Characteristics on Grades in Compulsory School. Scandinavian journal of educational research, 55(6), 587-608. OECD (2015). The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence. Paris: OECD Publishing. Perander, K., Londen, M., & Holm, G. (2020). Anxious Girls and Laid-back Boys: Teachers’ and Study Counsellors’ Gendered Perceptions of Students. Cambridge Journal of Education, 50(2), 185-199. Terrier, C. (2020). Boys Lag behind: How teachers’ Gender Biases Affect Student Achievement. Economics of Education Review, 77, 101981. Tomasetto, C. (2019). Gender Stereotypes, Anxiety, and Math Outcomes in Adults and Children. In Mammarella, I. C., & Caviola, S. and Dowker, A. (Eds.). Mathematics Anxiety: What Is Known, and What is Still Missing. Routledge. Van Houtte, M. (2020). Understanding the Gender Gap in School (Dis) engagement from Three Gender Dimensions: the Individual, the Interactional and the Institutional. Educational Studies, 1-19. Zanolla, G. (in press). Equità. In Castelli, L. & Plata, A. (Eds.) Scuola a Tutto Campo. Indicatori del Sistema Educativo Ticinese. SUPSI-DFA, Locarno.