Exploring pathways: How friends' anti-academic behavior contributes to the gender gap in language and math grades

This study investigates the role of friends in the establishment of the gender gap in grades in secondary education. Specifically, it explores to what extent and through what pathways the anti-academic behavior of friends in school affects the gender gap in grades for the national language and math. Hypotheses are tested with two waves of the CILS4EU data that contain information about students and their schools in Sweden, the Netherlands, England and Germany (n = 10,164). Multilevel mediation models show that girls receive considerably higher grades than boys for the national language and that boys have a small advantage in math. Gender gaps in grades are affected by friends’ anti-academic behavior. Boys’ friends more often engage in anti-academic behavior, and this directly negatively impacts grades, but also works indirectly as it stimulates students’ own anti-academic behavior which in turn is detrimental to grades.