Debunking Myths about Gender, Culture, and Math Performance
Janet Mertz Guest Lecturer
Mon Jan 9, 03:30-05:00pm, 35-225
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Are boys really better at mathematics than girls? They sometimes outperform girls on mathematics tests. Also, boys' mathematics scores usually exhibit greater variance than girls' scores. But are these observed differences due to innate biological differences between the sexes or to a variety of country-specific sociocultural factors? To answer
these questions, we analyzed data on mathematics performance of students from 86 countries throughout the world. We found that gender gap and variance ratio are unrelated to a country's wealth, major religion, or co-educational schooling. Rather, mathematics performance of both boys and girls strongly correlates with some measures of gender equity, especially participation rate and salary of women in the paid labor force relative
to men. Organized by the D. W. Weeks Lecture Series
Contact: Janet Mertz, 2-277, x3-4386
Sponsor: Mathematics
Latest update: 05-Jan-2012
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