Subjective difference: Institutional culture and the assessment of Fijian female academic achievement

Several societies throughout the global North and South are now witnessing unprecedented patterns of marginally higher female academic performance and educational attainment. But the processes that have generated such patterns and responses to their development have not been uniform across or within these societies. In multiracial Fiji, statistics reveal higher secondary school enrolment and lower attrition rates for Fijian females compared with Fijian males, and while national examination scores are not aggregated by sex, Fijian girls are widely viewed as relatively 'higher achievers'. Drawing from participant observation in a working-class, co-educational, predominantly Fijian secondary school and a selective Fijian girls' secondary school, this article explores how the intersections of social class, culture and sex structure in schools mediate the interpretation of, response to, and assessment of Fijian female academic achievement.