Academic achievements among adolescent school children. Effects of gender and season of birth

Abstract

We have investigated gender differences in academic achievements in two age cohorts of students from the Lower Secondary School in Norway (2000, 2005; 15-16 year olds). In the 2000 and 2005 cohorts the female students outperformed male students in twelve out of thirteen academic disciplines, including mathematics and nature-science. Physical education was the only discipline where the male students had higher grade points than the female students. In both cohorts the results showed a significant effect of season of birth: Students who were born in the Nordic winter-spring season had slightly higher grade points than students born in the summer-autumn season. There was no significant interaction between gender and season of birth.