In the following ESADE study, the phenomenon of school failure is analyzed from a gender perspective in an attempt to identify the causes that lead to higher rates of repetition of courses and school dropout. At the end of the study, they provide the conclusions and some measurements that could contribute to reducing this gender gap, with special emphasis on personal tutoring as a tool which has shown great effectiveness.

Despite the improvements experienced in the last decade, Spain has the second highest rate of early school leaving in the European Union. This phenomenon affects boys to a greater extent, and young people with lower-income families, with Spain being one of the countries where these groups suffer the greatest gaps.

In this brief we use two good predictors of early school leaving, such as the student's academic performance (in Language, English and Mathematics) and grade repetition. In Spain, there are no diagnostic-type assessment data at the national level that allow learning outcomes to be related to characteristics of students and households. Therefore, we use data from the diagnostic evaluation tests developed in the Community of Madrid in 3rd and 6th grades of primary school, and 4th grade of ESO for the 2016/17 academic year.

Students of higher socioeconomic status perform significantly better for all subjects and educational levels. For example, the difference between a student of low and high socioeconomic status in the 3rd grade of Primary is 58 percent of the standard deviation (SD) in mathematics, and 55 percent of the SD in language. These differences are the equivalent of almost two years of schooling.

If we look at the gender differences in achievement, the initial differences in performance in primary school in favor of girls in language and English decrease in secondary school: in any case, boys repeat grades more than girls in all educational levels and age groups. socioeconomic background.

For students of low socioeconomic status, despite the significant improvement in the academic performance of boys in all subjects throughout the years, the gender differences in the rate of repetition remain constant between primary and secondary.

For students of medium and high socioeconomic status, despite the modest improvement in academic performance of boys in all subjects throughout the courses, and the stagnation of girls, the gender differences in the rate of repetition ( much higher among boys) skyrocket between primary and secondary.

Several factors could be behind these results. For example, boys report a significantly lower level of satisfaction with school and spend fewer hours on homework than girls. An econometric analysis of the results suggests that up to 30% of the gender differences in grade repetition could be reduced in favor of boys by improving parental support and boys' satisfaction at school. It is more complicated to modify the differences in academic performance, both in Mathematics and in Language, although parental support seems to have a positive influence on the performance of boys. The data also suggest that in the 4th year of ESO the margin for improvement is more uncertain and reduced, perhaps because it is already too late.

Beyond these two mechanisms, which could be extrapolated to the rest of the Autonomous Communities given the widespread incidence of the phenomenon of school failure in low-income boys and students, a review of the international literature related to school failure offers several public policies that could help to reduce the level of early school dropout among the most affected groups: (i) the effect of individualized tutoring programs and academic support; (ii) the increase in the degree of parental support with the collaboration of the schools; (iii) the availability of better academic guidance; (iv) the increase in satisfaction with the school could occur through a greater diversity of the socio-demographic profiles of the teaching staff in the school as well as an awareness of teacher evaluation biases.

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