Luigi Guiso and colleagues used the Pisa data to explore gender differences in maths performance. Overall, girls’ maths scores averaged 10.5 points (2%) lower than the mean average for boys, but this difference varied by country. In Turkey, for instance, the gender gap is greater (boys outperform girls by 22.6 points) while in Iceland the gender difference is reversed: girls outperform boys by 14.5 points.

The researchers then classified each country on the basis of gender equality, ie how much they treated women as equal to men. In more gender-neutral countries such as Norway and Sweden the maths gender gap disappeared. They state that if Turkey were characterised by the same gender equality seen in Sweden, the gender gap in maths would be eliminated. 

To get an idea of the expectations that young people have of gender roles and stereotypes, our researchers asked children about the kind of attributes they thought their friends would say is the most important.

For both boys and girls, ‘being good-looking’ is the standout characteristic. For girls, this is particularly notable at a huge 44%, with ‘being caring’ the next most common at 30%.

When it comes to boys, ‘being good-looking’ gained 32% of selections, with ‘being funny’ a close second at 23%.

Almost 1 in 8 of the young people interviewed said that ‘being tough’ is important in boys, compared to just 3% in girls. 
https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-and-blogs/our-blog/traditional-gender-roles-and-stereotypes-how-it-can-affect-children

Speakezee, a platform that connects academics with non-academic audiences, is working with the Institute of Physics and the Girls’ School Association to send young female graduate Stem students into schools to talk to and inspire young teenage girls to consider pursuing Stem topics at A-level.