Jordan has never had a female minister of education, women make up less than a fifth of its workforce, and women hold just 4 percent of board seats at public companies there. But, in school, Jordanian girls are crushing their male peers. The nation’s girls outperform its boys in just about every subject and at every age level.

Four years ago, Jordan’s Ministry of Education commissioned a large study on the country’s gender gap. The researchers examined international and national test data going back over a decade, concluding that girls had outperformed boys in virtually all regions of the country and in all subjects. But the team also analyzed survey data and held focus groups with nearly 400 students, teachers, parents, and principals. The findings, which were published in 2014 and have been echoed in other internal government research, revealed that boys and girls might as well have been attending schools in different countries.

For one thing, boys’ schools are more violent places, concluded the study, which was funded by USAID. Over half of the boys interviewed said they’d experienced some kind of bullying in school over the previous year. Two-thirds of male teachers said they’d witnessed physical violence among students in the past year—compared with less than a quarter of female teachers. Boys also reported worse relationships with their male teachers.

Read the full article by Amanda Ripley about the gender gap in Jordan on The Atlantic