attendance at school and lack of teacher enthusiasm (in itself, a contributory factor to a school environment that is not conducive to student learning).

Teacher training represents another area for improvement. Results from this paper show that despite male teachers’ greater exposure to education during initial training and their higher qualifications compared to female teachers,<sup>10</sup> boys in Saudi schools achieve much poorer outcomes than girls in both mathematics and science. Although holding higher qualifications does not necessarily suggest a higher standard of teaching or improved student performance (Harris and Sass 2011), especially when the focus of the qualification is unknown, these patterns may signal the poor quality of teacher education and training. Further study of these dynamics as they relate to student outcomes would be useful.

In general, efforts to raise educational achievement in Saudi Arabia require taking a broader view beyond the necessary focus on schools and teachers. As noted above, early child development (physical, cognitive, social) and early learning provide foundations for achievement in elementary and intermediate school, and beyond. Ongoing support for learning at home throughout childhood is also crucial, including modeling of positive behaviors (e.g., reading) and involvement in children’s education by their parents.

# 6.1 Suggestions for further research

Future efforts to explain the observed differences between boys’ and girls’ achievement in Saudi Arabia should, if possible, seek to include a broader range of out-of-school factors in the analysis than were possible with the TIMSS 2019 data set. For example, some variables that are not available in TIMSS 2019 or NALO 2018 but that could be usefully considered in a future analysis of gender differences in achievement include students’ reading proficiency; students’ engagement in reading for leisure; and the (gendered) nature of parents’ expectations and aspirations for their child’s education, qualifications, and future career. In particular, considering the importance of literacy as a foundational skill (see also Gregory et al. 2021), the inclusion of an indicator of reading achievement would help control for gender differences relating to literacy levels and would allow more fine-grained examination of mathematical and scientific proficiency. Among international assessments, data from PISA at intermediate level or from a joint TIMSS and PIRLS assessment (such as TIMSS/PIRLS 2011) at primary level could be used for this purpose. At the national level, an administration of NALO that assessed reading as well as mathematics or science from the same students could also be used. Given that the majority of unexplained variance in the models presented in this paper was at the student level, extending future analyses in this way should provide further useful insights.

As noted above (section 5.3), a focused examination of teaching quality in Saudi Arabia — incorporating teacher characteristics, quality of teacher education, professional development, availability and use of resources, classroom management, professional collaboration, and pedagogy — would shed further light on some of the points raised in this paper. In particular, differences between the classroom environments of boys and girls, given the gender-segregated structure of the education system, merit closer inspection.

Finally, it would be useful to extend the work presented in this paper by drawing on data from other countries. In the first instance, subsequent research could focus on countries with similar cultural contexts such as other countries with comparable international data within the Gulf or MENA regions. Such research could examine (a) the extent of similarity between observed gender differences in Saudi Arabia compared to other countries, and (b) similarities and differences in the factors associated with student outcomes in each national context. Further work could also usefully examine factors associated with gender differences in single-gender compared to mixed-gender schools (see figure 2), particularly in, but not limited to, the MENA region.

> 10 Male teachers are more likely than female teachers to report holding a master’s or doctorate-level qualification, as are principals of boys’ schools compared to principals of girls’ schools.

34