The article discusses gender disparity in education from a gender democracy perspective. A cross national examination has been conducted to account for the wide variation of variables. The manuscript demonstrates significant evidences of linking gender democracy with the educational paradigm. The article further highlights important measures that can be usefully applied. It is well written, clear, well organized and provides a relevant approach. It definitely adds on the current literature about gender and education by the good analysis which I consider well performed. However, there are still some concerns that I have regarding this paper.

Statistically, the author needs to consider a second alternative procedure to confirm the results. It is preferable that the author combines different methods to avoid the bias that might stem for one method. The author is required to analyse the findings with a critical lens (although the analysis part is put forward by the author but for strong demonstration of findings a critical stand is required). The findings can be usefully applied, however; the author is strongly recommended to modify his work to further demonstrate in his manuscript how he can generalize and reproduce his findings to meet the standards of quality research. Given that the manuscript was published in 2004, I can accept the field perspective (in current date this has been exhaustively discussed). I have some major concerns regarding the theoretical lens, for research validity I recommend using theory triangulation to confirm the findings.

All in all, this a good paper which has embraced many sources but yet I am astonished to not to see any references. The author must not oversimplify the role of referencing and is highly recommended to give credit to past research in the reference section. The whole paper can lose its credibility if not rejected before it reaches the publication stage.