University gender gap emerging at age 13, Oxford study finds | Times Higher Education (THE)

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"Research for Sutton Trust finds girls in Year 9 are more likely than boys to think getting a degree is important" summarizes Chris Havergal, reporter whose brief includes Scotland, Wales and devolved government, the internationalisation of higher education, university administration and business schools. 

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The roots of the growing gender gap in university admissions are already evident by the age of 13, according to a University of Oxford study.

Research conducted for the Sutton Trust found that girls in Year 9 were significantly more likely to perceive getting a university degree as being important than their male classmates.
In this age group, 64.9 per cent of girls felt that getting a degree was very important, compared with 57.6 per cent of boys.

Kathy Sylva, professor of educational psychology at Oxford and a co-author of the report, said that girls’ higher aspirations “may be linked to their greater A-level success and gaining admission to university”.

Drawing on a longitudinal study of about 2,700 schoolchildren in England, the report found that a significant gap in aspirations remained at Year 11, when 59 per cent of girls felt that getting a degree was very important, compared with only 53.1 per cent of boys.

The researchers found that more than half of all students who thought it was very important to get a degree went on to take three or more A levels – likely to be a key requirement for access to university – compared with only a third of those who thought it was fairly important and 11 per cent of those who felt it was not very important.
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Additional resources

Believing in Better by Professor Pam Sammons, Dr Katalin Toth and Professor Kathy Sylva, from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.
Source: The Sutton Trust  

Source: Times Higher Education