A Narrative Review of the Gender Gap in PISA in the Spanish Case

Various international studies indicate that gender can influence students' academic performance. The aim of this research is to assess whether there is a gender gap in the performance of Spanish students in the three subjects examined by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment): reading comprehension, mathematics and science, across the eight editions to date. To this end, a literature review of the last three decades was conducted, along with a multisectoral analysis of the data from the available PISA reports, assessing national and regional differences and changes over time. The results of this study show that Spanish students follow the trend of most countries analysed by PISA: girls perform better in reading comprehension, boys perform better in mathematics, and there are no significant differences between the sexes in science. In conclusion, the gender gap is more pronounced in reading and less pronounced in mathematics. Gender differences in the three subjects tend to be greater in the latest edition than in previous ones.