Girls worse at math? No way, new analysis shows

[AllieB]

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/06/01/girls_worse_at_math_no_way_new_analysis_shows/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Girls can do just as well at math as boys -- even at the genius level -- if they are given the same opportunities and encouragement, researchers reported on Monday.

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contradicts studies showing girls can do as well as boys on average in math -- but cannot excel in the way males can.

snip:

"We conclude that gender inequality, not lack of innate ability or 'intrinsic aptitude', is the primary reason fewer females than males are identified as excelling in mathematics performance in most countries, including the United States," Janet Hyde and Janet Mertz of the University of Wisconsin in Madison wrote in their report.
------------------------------------------

Society is unfair to both boys and girls and pigeonholes them into gender roles very early on. On the one hand, there are more girls than ever getting into college, but on the other hand, women still earn less than men.

[Deja Q]

1. Octomom knows how to count to 8...

And just think of how high Mrs. Duggar can count!! :party:

[AllieB]

2. Haha!

I think she can also count how many times her hubby cheated on her too.

[OhioChick]

21. LOL

:rofl:

[rurallib]

3. Getting a couple Danica McKeller books for my mentees

6th & 7th grade. Ms. McKeller has a PHD in Math and really relates to young ladies that math is ok.
Yes you can be smart and an actress (Winnie from Wonder Years)

[AllieB]

4. I wonder why for so many years women were discouraged

from taking advanced math and science. Even when I was in college (late 80s/early 90s), my math and finance classes were mostly men.

[Sabriel]

6. "Math is hard!" whines Talking Barbie

"I like shopping!"

Gee, I wonder where that cultural discrepancy in performance comes from?

[Dogmudgeon]

35. Wrong place!

Sorry!

--d!

[kimmylavin]

42. Like her books a lot.

And I love the concept behind them.

Plus, she's a really nice person! (Had the opportunity to play some "broom hockey" with her a few years ago...) :)

[TahitiNut]

5. Not even one girl ever earned a passing grade from me when I taught high school math

... in a boys' Catholic high school.

[KT2000]

15. Good one!

you got my attention! :thumbsup:

[TahitiNut]

19. ;-) ... I recall tutoring sophomores and juniors when I was a senior in high school.

All girls. Go figure. :shrug:

[HughMoran]

7. My girls are quite good at math

I've been telling them that since they were babies - they believed me :D

[Dappleganger]

11. As are mine

thankful, far better than their mother!

My husband is an engineer and has always tutored the kids at the upper levels which seems to have made a positive difference. Our boys seem to show the same abilities, but of course they've had the same opportunities. We've been lucky to have some great math teachers along the way as well.

[HughMoran]

14. Having an engineer in the family doesn't hurt either

I am one so I know I can help them when they get to the heavy stuff.

[ShortnFiery]

8. Paging Larry Summers and Ruth Marcus of the Whoreshington post?!?

:evilgrin:



Summers' remarks on women draw fire
January 15, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/02/AR2008120202724.html

Summers was boneheaded to say what he said, in the way that he said it and considering the job that he held. But he probably had a legitimate point -- and the continuing uproar says more about the triumph of political correctness than about Summers's supposed sexism.

[AllieB]

13. Summers is an ass.

He was also the reason Cornell West left Harvard.

[BlooInBloo]

9. In classes I taught, girls consistently performed a small amount better than the boys...

On average, mostly undergrad level course work.

I've always chalked it up to the girls being slightly more likely to follow my suggestions (things like "do the fucking homework", and the like).

[dorkulon]

10. But what if the women who did this study got their math wrong?

:sarcasm:

[Massacure]

12. There are 10 types of people in this world

Those who can count in binary and those who cannot. :evilgrin:

[ljm2002]

29. Good one!

:thumbsup:

[Odin2005]

16. Evolutionary Psychology is the "Scientific Racism" of the 21st century.

I used to be very interested in it until I started to see the ridiculous and obvious biased assumptions it was based on.

[ShortnFiery]

18. True. When I was a graduate student in the late 80s, Arthur Jensen spoke at my college ...

They had to provide security for him and rightly so. During his "dog and pony show" he made a snide correlational comment that highly successful men marry TALL women. ... Well those are fighting words for me. :P However, I didn't protest but merely thought "WHAT AN ASS!"

These types of people (smug intellectuals) only serve to divide the human race into waring factions.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947407,00.html

BTW as much as I admire Jonathon Turley's insight, I also recently noted a glimpse of "the callous academic snob" he can be when he doesn't check himself. :(

[Odin2005]

20. I can't beleive many people can't see the obvious baised assumptions in that nonsense.

That it always seems to confirm the socio-cultural orthodoxy is suspicious as Hell.

[seabeyond]

25. exactly. exactly. the most obvious, they harp on evolution as they

refuse to evolve. what sense does that make. not even that the supposed evolutionary scientists have a clue and it is all guess and assumption, and many of the assumption proclaimed can be flat out argued.

dude....

be proud.

[seabeyond]

23. speak it brother,

wink

isnt it the truth.

[Odin2005]

26. Yup!

[Dogmudgeon]

32. A sure sign of your evolutionary fitness!

:applause:

And send one to the "esteemed" Mr. Silvio Berlusconi. CC to his divorce lawyer.

Best. Ironic. Bingo. Card. Ever.

--d!

[Odin2005]

33. I ran into the bingo card over in the Womens' Rights subforum and thought it was hilarous.

:rofl:

[janx]

41. Yep, like "social Darwinism" or "sociobiology."

Absolutely!

[sorcrow]

17. Not surprising

In Japan, girls are sterotypically considered better at math, presumably because women are expected to handle the household finances.

I'm male and good at math, but my daughter at 13 scares me she's so good. She's got the genes (presumably) but has been doing Kumon math enrichment since she was about four.
Lots of practice.
Girls rock at math and anything else they want to do.

Crow

[dickthegrouch]

22. Women are far more likely to have to balance the family budget

IMHO they learn just fine, they don't have the motivation to use their math skills until they have to keep the baby fed while the hubby is going out drinking.

[ecstatic]

24. Wow! Thought that meme was debunked a while ago

especially since women are outperforming men in school these days.

[unblock]

28. i think it's ok to call them "girls" and "boys" when talking about school kids :)

reminds me of an overeager politically correct friend back in college who, when presented with a photo of a newborn, said, "look at the cute baby woman!"

[IDFbunny]

38. This is old news

but lets not let that stifle another "girls rule, boys drool" article.

[seabeyond]

49. summers, harvard dude last came up saying not. but then all it is saying is "just as well"

where does it hurt, anywhere, anyone, any gender to hear a study dismissing an inadequacy with a simple "just as well". not girls are better, not superior. merely saying girls do just as well = girls rule, boys drool?

[Quantess]

27. Remember Teen Talk Barbie, who said "math is hard!"

http://sniggle.net/barbie.php

[armyowalgreens]

30. I noticed that more girls were excelling in my math classes than my fellow males.

I always chocked it up to gender inequality. Apparently that study does a 180.

[Quantess]

39. Why so obtuse, obnoxious one?

[armyowalgreens]

43. Que?

[Quantess]

44. Did you always chalk it up to gender inequality?

"I noticed that more girls were excelling in my math classes than my fellow males. "

Or was there something else driving your perception?

[armyowalgreens]

45. No, I noticed that many of my teachers tended to harbor the interests of girls more often.

It wasn't a strong tendency, but none the less, it was there. I don't understand it, I just know it existed.

[Quantess]

46. Smart answer.

That way you can expound on the replies of people who say that girls have an easier time in school, while giving a nod to the guys who struggled through school.

[armyowalgreens]

47. Ha. I love you too.

I never mentioned the social aspects of school. That is another story all together.

I am speaking of only the academic portion. It seemed to me that a lot of teachers treated the two genders differently with a lot of the priority given to girls.

Except for my econ teacher. He was a sexist asshole who only looked at male input as legitimate.

[armyowalgreens]

48. Also, this was highschool. College is a lot different.

At my university, it seems as though the professors don't give a crap who you are, they only care if you can say something intelligent.

[unc70]

31. This study mostly glosses over the research issues raised decades ago

Once more we see confusion between individual performance/achievement co-mingled with group norms, then making matters worse by not even comparing the same things. There has never been a serious claim that individual girls can not do well at math, only that "on average" boys do slightly better at tasks generally considered to be part of "math", particularly in areas such as spatial concept formation. Conversely, girls "on average" test slightly better in various verbal areas.

As Thurstone, et al worked to standardize tests of intelligence and ability and define what was being measured, differences among various groups were of particular interest. Was there a bias in the instrument, the test, or was there a real difference in the performance by various groups or maybe something else such as self-selection of tested populations (a major factor in SAT by State results)?

In many cases, the differences between the performance of two groups is more profound among those performing poorly, rather than among those performing well. For example, the reason that "on average" girls do better on tests of verbal skills might reflect that there are more boys who have learning disabilities affecting verbal skills.

Trying to make sense out of all this is impossible with societal studies such as the one referenced. Even trying to do much simpler studies assessing education and the quality of schools is an extremely difficult task.

Our best chances for unraveling these problems will combine things like PET brain scans, new findings on brain chemistry, and mapping of genetic components to understand what is going on at very basic levels. Until we understand things at that level, the rest of this is about as valid as studying the bumps on people's heads.

[Clintonista2]

34. Where did this stereotype originate from anyways?

When I was in school, the girls were *ALWAYS* better at math than the boys.

[Quantess]

40. No, not true. Girls at my school were not better at math than boys.

But :toast:

"the girls were *ALWAYS* better at math than the boys." I have a problem with you, for saying that. Can I add that I have doubts about Clintonista2's integrity as a DUer.

[That Is Quite Enough]

36. Wow, we're just now 'officially' dispelling this ridiculous myth?

[Dogmudgeon]

37. Has anyone here read J. Philippe Rushton?

If you want a 100% guaranteed slap-your-knees laugh, you MUST read his papers explaining why Black people are less intelligent than White people, and why Asians outclass all others. It's because the bigger the penis, the more interest in sex and the less interest in learning. And since Black men have the largest penises, statistically speaking, they would rather get their mack on than crack a book.

Not only did he write that with a straight face, he built a career on it.

Yep ... Peer Reviewed and all.

--d!