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Education Capability: A Focus on Gender and Science

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Abstract

The focus of the paper is on the measurement of science education capability with a gender perspective and in the capability approach framework. Measuring science education capability implies going beyond the measurement of children test scores. In the capability approach, we aim at the real opportunities that children can develop later in life and therefore it is important to include some measures of non-cognitive skills. We utilize, therefore, different indicators in addition to test scores in science: enjoyment in science, interest in science, general and personal values of science, self-confidence in performing science related tasks, awareness and perception of environmental issues, and responsibility for sustainable development. We utilize the 2006 PISA survey for Italian 15 years old children because it contains a particular focus on science and we estimate a Structural Equation Model to take into account that capabilities are latent constructs of which we only observe some indicators. We also investigate the determinants of children’s science education capability in Italy taking into account household, individual and school factors. Results confirm that boys outperform girls in science education capability. Our theoretical construct for the science education capability confirms that all the indicators are relevant to measure this capability. School activities to promote sciences improve girls’ capability and interactive methods of teaching improve both girls and boys capability. The household educational resources and the household educational possession are also positively correlated with girls’ and boys’ science education capability.

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Notes

  1. The program provided 6 years of educational and family-support services to socioeconomic disadvantaged children from age 3 in Chicago Public Schools since 1967.

  2. This program has been experimented in Michigan in the mid-1960s and was devoted to low IQ and socioeconomic status African American aged 3–4 children including also activities with their parents.

  3. OECD inverts the items if appropriate, such that the higher the index, the better the performance of the child in a particular dimension. Each index is computed by OECD by running a Confirmatory Factor Analysis using Weighted Likelihood Estimator on the corresponding set of items. The (latent) index scale is then set with mean equal to zero and standard deviation equal to 1 at the OECD level. A positive or a negative index score of a child or of a group of children has therefore no meaning per se: it is interpretable only in comparison with the scores of another peer or of a group of peers (see OECD 2009 for details).

  4. These differences are highly statistically significant: t test = 21.53 for interactive teaching methods and t test = 4.37 for promotion of science.

  5. We ran an Exploratory Factor Analysis on the chosen ten indicators that confirms that there is only one single latent variable. Results are available from the Authors upon request.

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Acknowledgments

Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the “Children’s Capabilities and Human Development: Researching Inside and Outside of Schools” Conference, Cambridge, 11–12 April 2011; at the “Measuring Human Development and Capabilities in High-Income Countries” Conference, Rome, 14–15 April 2014; at the HDCA 2014 Conference, Athens, 2–5 September 2014; at the workshop “Actors in the Child Development Process”, CHILD-Collegio Carlo Alberto, Moncalieri, 25 May 2015. The authors would like to thank Paola Profeta, participants to the previous conferences and the anonymous referees for their comments and remarks. The most recent version of this research has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No. 320116 for the research project FamiliesAndSocieties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics “Marco Biagi”, Centre for the Analysis of Public Policies – CAPP, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Viale Berengario 51, 41121, Modena, Italy

    Tindara Addabbo

  2. Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Centre for Household Income Labour and Demographic Economics – CHILD, University of Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10153, Turin, Italy

    Maria Laura Di Tommaso

  3. Department of Economics “Cognetti de Martiis”, University of Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10153, Turin, Italy

    Anna Maccagnan

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  1. Tindara Addabbo
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Correspondence to Maria Laura Di Tommaso.

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Addabbo, T., Di Tommaso, M.L. & Maccagnan, A. Education Capability: A Focus on Gender and Science. Soc Indic Res 128, 793–812 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1057-8

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