Stereotypes are usually the last thing to change in the face of
contradictory evidence. A case in point is the long held belief
that boys are better at mathematics than girls.
Well a meta-analysis to be published in the journal Psychological
Bulletin can be added to the pile of evidence that finds no significant
gender difference in mathematical ability.
Researchers analyzed results from two math tests that assessed
nearly half a million boys and girls between the ages of 14 to 16,
from 69 countries. They tested algebra, geometry, data analysis
and number concepts. The study's lead author, Villanova University
psychology professor Nicole Else-Quest found "...that on average across
all the nations the gender difference was negligible."
But she and her colleagues did notice an interesting pattern, "When
you look at the variability across nations you see it varies a great
deal. There are some nations where girls do better than boys. There
are some nations boys do better than girls."
Countries that had larger gender gaps favoring boys included Tunisia
and Korea. And those favoring girls were Jordan and Bahrain.
But most countries showed no gender gap including the United States,
Sweden, Germany.
Else-Quest notes that there is some association between the status of
women in each country and their ability to do mathematics.
"The percentage of women in parliament was moderately associated with
the size of the gender gap in math such that in countries where there
were fewer women in parliament males tended to do better in math than
girls by a larger extent than in countries in which there was better
representation by women in parliament."
That connection would seem to imply that achievement levels are not
innate and fixed.
"And that these gender differences that we are seeing are not because
they have different brains. It's because of social forces-which
suggests that they can be changed."