Diferencias de género en el desempeño matemático en los primeros años de escolaridad en Colombia

International studies show a relatively early emergence of a gap favoring boys over girls in various tests of mathematical skills. This gap tends to appear in the first years of primary school and continues to grow throughout the years of schooling. The current study sought to examine the performance of Colombian girls and boys on several tests of specific mathematical skills that are foundational in the development of mathematical knowledge. Additionally, it aimed to examine the possible role of contextual variables, such as parental occupational level, in differences in mathematics performance. To these ends, we used a database from a previous study that recorded the performance on various mathematical skills of a sample of students (n = 96) from first and second grade in the city of Cali, Colombia. The analyses revealed significant differences favoring boys on the Number Comparison, Number Line, and Number Facts tasks, but not on Arithmetic and Geometry tasks. Parental occupation only influenced performance on the Number Comparison task. These results indicate that in first and second grade, performance differences are specific to certain mathematical skills. The article discusses the educational implications of these findings.