The terms equality and equity are often confused, which in reality is not merely a terminological debate, but rather a practical one. While equality refers to the equal treatment of all people simply because they are human beings (without further distinction), equity refers to an ideal of justice. The latter acts as a regulator of those circumstances which, as a result of vulnerability factors, prevent certain individuals or groups from building a dignified life (Espinoza, 2007). 

Educational equity has been divided into three dimensions: academic segregation, equality of results and equality of opportunity (hereinafter EO), on which we will focus (Enchikova et al., 2024). The aim of this article is to delve deeper into EO, moving away from the conceptual superficiality to which it has been reduced, and studying how it works in the construction of educational gender equity in the European context. 

Puyol understands that all individuals, regardless of their characteristics, should be able to develop freely through equal opportunities. To this end, circumstances beyond their control must be equalised through a ‘levelling of the playing field’ (Rawls, 1971; Roemer, 1998; Puyol, 2010), providing a series of basic personal and impersonal goods together with the ability to use them and eliminating roles and stereotypes (Dworkin, 1981; Cubo, 2018), to the point where the results of this process are due solely to individual decisions (Puyol, 2010; Barragué, 2016). Thus, at the same time, EO is the first condition for exercising freedom. 

In this sense, the thesis defended here is that merit is not an adequate measure of equal opportunity because it does not reach all sectors of a structurally unequal society equally. The meritocratic principle thus serves as a ‘device for legitimising privilege’ and the market economy (Rendueles, 2024).

The case of gender equality is not only highly illustrative, but also deeply relevant to the construction of an egalitarian society. The starting point faced by women in the education system requires an approach based on ‘human capital, role models and the construction of gender stereotypes’ (Vázquez-Cupeiro, 2015, p. 183). In fact, the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life committed to eliminating discrimination and obstacles, roles and stereotypes, and ensuring balanced participation in decision-making. 

Therefore, an initial levelling is necessary, recognising and tackling obstacles, not only as material and economic barriers, but also cultural, symbolic and social ones (Dworkin, 1981; Subrahmanian, 2005). In other words, women's choices and outcomes are determined by the roles they have been taught, both in the family and at school, where the dominant ideology is reproduced (Ávila, 2004), resulting in a sexual division of public and private space (Cobo, 2005), that is, in strata or outcomes. 

Even so, every social system needs an authority to legitimise its ideology, and ‘science’, with its privileged status, is a powerful consolidating agent (Vázquez-Cupeiro, 2004). Hence the need for indicators that measure gender equity in education, specifically the I. O., in order to understand and eliminate illegitimate inequality in status and outcomes. One example is the EGEI (European Gender Equity Index), based on the differentiated position of men and women in social spaces, as well as on the resources needed to maintain that status: economic resources (work), social prestige (education) and power (politics). Empirical analyses indicate that the situation in Europe still involves structural inequality between men and women, although there are significant differences between countries (Bericat, 2011).

In short, a methodological tool is needed that considers the before (opportunities), during and after the educational moment (Subrahmanian, 2005), allowing for contextualisation or establishing a ‘connection between background and educational outcomes’ (Enchikova et al., 2024). 

This paper presents a new index, which intends to measure the influence of gender in educational equity in some European countries. This index is also compared to other indicators related to education and gender, and broader socio-economic country-level issues. The sample consists of 15-year-old students participating in PISA 2022 in the European Union countries. Following OECD (2024) recommendations, since our aim is to compare data between countries, the data was weighted with the variable “senate weight”, which avoids biases due to uneven sample sizes by escalating all country samples to 5000 individuals. The variables extracted from the PISA 2022 competence and context questionnaires (OECD, 2023) were three: gender, mathematical competence level (first plausible value), and the economic, social and cultural status of students (ESCS), PISA’s own measure of socioeconomic status (SES). The EQGED index (Gender Equity in Education) was designed to quantify the differential influence that SES has on math achievement according to student gender. For each gender, a simple regression was calculated, obtaining the R2, and the following formula was used to get the EQGED for each country: (R2male/R2female)-1. This way, a value of 0 would signify an equal impact of SES on achievement in both genders, values under 0 would mean a higher impact of SES for women, and values over 0 would mean a higher impact of SES for men. For cases with unequal regression coefficients and intercepts (and thus diverse regressions slopes), we also explored whether the widest gaps in achievement were located in low or high SES brackets to check for possible patterns. Lastly, in an attempt to explore possible correlations between EQGED and other system-level socioeconomic variables, we compared our index with the countries’ GDP (World Bank) and Human Development Index (UNDP).

Throughout this paper, a new index has been presented to measure the difference between the impact of SES on the achievement of European secondary education students according to their gender. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study of the gap in educational equity represents a novel approach. While the results reveal clear differences between the European countries regarding the magnitude of their equity gap and the pattern of these inequalities, in the vast majority of countries women suffer greater disadvantages than their male classmates. Some countries display inequalities primarily in high SES brackets, indicating that at low SES levels male and female students score similarly; however, as one moves up the economic spectrum, male students take greater advantage of resources and attain higher achievement compared to their female peers with the same SES. Other countries show the opposite pattern, with relative equality of achievement at high SES levels, but manifest achievement inequalities at low levels. This poses a more concerning problem, as it implies that the most economically disadvantaged female students suffer a greater negative impact on their achievement than their male counterparts. This raises two important research questions: what risk factors do women of low SES suffer to a greater extent that might explain this situation? And, what can be done to mitigate these effects? On the other hand, the correlation analysis makes it evident that the EQGED index does not significantly correlate with other socioeconomic indicators. Although further in-depth investigation into its potential relationship with other indices is certainly required, the main objective for future research should be the detection of factors related to educational inequity based on gender, in order to establish effective educational policies and practices to reduce this gap.

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