<p>Just thought I’d add in something for discussion:</p>
<p>Women now account for 30 percent of math Ph.D.s, up from just 5 percent in the 1960s.</p>
<p>[Women</a> Are Overtaking Men in the U.S. – Sphere News, Opinion and Analysis](<a href=“Manage, Control & Monetize Your Content | Outbrain.com”>Manage, Control & Monetize Your Content | Outbrain.com)</p>
<p>JHS</p>
<p>I will argue your point about Larry Summers’ comment about girls ability in math. He most certainly was quoted as claiming that girls are biologically less suited for math and engineering that boys.</p>
<p>In the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are, in fact, lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.</p>
<p>Key words: Intrinsic…lesser factors.</p>
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<li> EPTR, I didn’t claim that Summers didn’t say those things. But what he said translates into something another poster here said more simply: Boys’ math aptitude tends to vary more than girls’ math aptitude. Therefore if you look at the outliers – math geniuses and people incapable of doing math – both groups tend to have more boys. That doesn’t mean, of course, that girls are not capable of being math geniuses, and Summers never implied that to be the case. What it might mean, in the highly specialized context of Harvard faculty appointments, is that it is not a valid goal to have equal numbers of male and female math faculty, maybe the “right” proportion is 60-40, or 70-30. And “might” is a key word there – Summers never said more than that such might be the case.</li>
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<p>Of course, all of that is hypothetical until one deals with the cultural issues – Summers’ “lesser factors involving socialization and discrimination”. It’s not a question of “blaming” the culture, or of “blaming” girls themselves. It’s a recognition that there are lots of factors that peel girls away from serious math study as they get older, and that the world would probably be a better place if that happened less. One of those factors may be a matter of genetic distribution, but I don’t think anyone believes that accounts for the massive differences that exist today. And part of the proof of that is that yesterday (yesterdecade) the differences were far more massive, and some minor cultural tinkering has reduced them considerably. These factors may be “lesser” because they can be dealt with fairly easily.</p>
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<li><p>My family’s story is something the reverse of FallGirl’s. My daughter was always seen as having real math talent, although her grades always suffered because of her disinterest in memorizing math facts. She was accelerated in math, and hated it, and completely turned off math by 11th grade. She struggled to pass college calculus – not struggled in the sense of working hard to pass, but in the sense of disciplining herself to do enough work so she could get a solid C+ and move on. In contrast, my son always thought of himself as a great math student, and always was near the top of his classes in math grades. Despite that, he was NOT put into accelerated math, because his teachers did not think he was really facile with math concepts. As a result, he continued to get great math grades. He tutored other kids in math. He doubled up on math to be able to get through Calculus BC in high school. He got 800 on the SAT I Math section, and 780 on the Math 2 SAT II. And somewhere in the middle of Calculus he hit an absolute wall, going from A work to C work. And then, in college, the same thing happened. Both of my kids got to exactly the same place in math, by completely different routes, and accelerating and encouraging my daughter seemed to hasten her disaffection with math.</p></li>
<li><p>On a further anecdotal level, there’s no question that I see lots more girls who are interested in math and good at it these days. But there are still lots of cultural pulls. One girl was through Calculus by seventh grade, but in college she abandoned further math for studying economics using the math she already had. One girl was a math major at Harvard who has pursued graduate study in computational linguistics. One girl went to Harvard intending to be a math major, but realized quickly that she would never excel in that group, and is now in a high-ranking MD/PhD program. One girl applied to and was accepted by Carnegie-Mellon’s School of Computer Science, and was offered a full ride to a public university’s engineering school . . . but chose to attend a top liberal arts college instead, where she is toying with the idea of pursuing a 3-2 program. (We’ll see.) All of these girls were the best or, at worst, the second-best math students in their high-powered high schools; they received every encouragement to study math and to align their career goals with that, but they still chose the exit ramp.</p></li>
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<p>There are actually lots of girls going into science and taking the math they need, but they are all in biology. Most biology programs now have more women than men. </p>
<p>There are absolutely more boys topping out at the SATs. It’s hard to believe it can all be explained by nurture. I wish it could be, (as a woman whose highest score was the Math 2 subject test 790 not 800, but still pretty good 
), but I’m not convinced.</p>
<p>Regarding the second article I don’t think you can tell to much about math abilities from state level tests - they are too easy. The real question is whether there are more boys at the top and why. If you look at the 800 scorers for CTY tests in 7th and 8th grade, they are nearly all boys (at least from the years I have on file). If you look at who get the top scores on the AMC tests or AIME, again - the group is dominated by boys. My all girls high school had okay math (but only a tiny percentage went on to Calculus), and terrible science. I’m happy to say it got much better after I graduated.</p>
<p>I’m very concerned about stereotyping women. After all I’m in a male dominated field. :)</p>
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<p>Heh, I did.</p>
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<p>I’m skeptical, because of my observations of the all-girls’ private high schools in my district. Their math, science, and technology education was <em>atrocious</em>. When they transferred to my public high school, they were 1-2 years behind in those subjects (though they were at our level or even a little ahead in humanities subjects).</p>
<p>A few of my friends who went to girls’ high schools have described something similar. One went on to major in math at MIT, but when she was in high school, and trying to arrange an independent study for math (because she had gone as far as the school’s curriculum went), she was told by admins at her high school that as a girl she didn’t need any more math.</p>
<p>Mind you, I think the phenomenon that you’re speculating about <em>can</em> play out, and sometimes does at women’s colleges. I just don’t think that gender segregation in school is <em>sufficient</em> - if it were, the girls that I saw from the gender-segregated high schools would have been doing better - and if it’s done badly, it can do harm.</p>
<p>Also, I suggest that everyone read up on women and stereotype threat:</p>
<p><a href=“http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2008/1/29/Stereotype_Threat_Affects_Women_in_Highlevel_Math_Courses_Aronson_Study_Finds[/url]”>http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/news/2008/1/29/Stereotype_Threat_Affects_Women_in_Highlevel_Math_Courses_Aronson_Study_Finds</a>
<a href=“http://www.anthro.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/courses/anth102/DarNimrodWomMathScience06.pdf[/url]”>http://www.anthro.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/courses/anth102/DarNimrodWomMathScience06.pdf</a></p>
<p>This is a very thoughtful thread. </p>
<p>Part of it reminds me of Deborah Tannen’s book, You Just Don’t Understand, about gender differences in communications styles, which argued that men have an “I want to solve the problem” attitude and woman an “I want to us to exchange feelings” attitude, which could translate into math problems vs. verbal expression. But there are some good arguments about how much is just the result of gender stereotyping.</p>
<p>I suppose some of this thread’s research would also support an argument that colleges which give girls more slack for a poor math score than boys are themselves stereotyping–but then, should colleges really care deeply about the math scores of anyone seeking a major in art history, theatre, literature, etc? Although an understanding of how misleading statistics can be is helpful in many fields, I wonder how well the math SAT serves as a predictor of acadmic success in those fields.</p>
<p>Another recent article by Stephen Ceci <a href=“Custom Domain by Bitly”>Custom Domain by Bitly, suggested some of the following connections regarding the under-representation of women in math and science fields.</p>
<p>“Factors unique to under-representation in math-intensive fields include the following: (a) Math-proficient women disproportionately prefer careers in non–math-intensive fields and are more likely to leave math-intensive careers as they advance; (b) more men than women score in the extreme math-proficient range on gatekeeper tests, such as the SAT Mathematics and the Graduate Record Examinations Quantitative Reasoning sections; (c) women with high math competence are disproportionately more likely to have high verbal competence, allowing greater choice of professions; and (d) in some math-intensive fields, women with children are penalized in promotion rates.”</p>
<p>I found point c to be particularly interesting, I think I have seen it play out in my two children, older D and younger S. Older D’s competence in math didn’t shine through in the same way that S’s math abilities did at a young age. </p>
<p>Her abilities and interests were strong across the board, so we didn’t push her participation in special programs outside of school for strong math students. S was so obviously strong in the math and science areas, not as much in non-science/math areas, that we decided it was worth the extra time and money to get him involved in the outside of school accelerated math program. </p>
<p>D is now a freshman in college, she always took the most difficult math classes available to her during K-12 years and is continuing to study and enjoy math and science classes at a college level. She also loves her non-science classes, so it is difficult to say what she will choose as a career direction. She is struggling with making that decision and it is hard to know how to guide her. </p>
<p>Clearly there are many factors at play in these issues but future lifestyle and options weigh strongly for many woman.</p>
<p>Northernwoods, I agree with much of your post. I grew up in a family of all daughters, my oldest sister scored a perfect score on the SAT math 40+ years ago, has a PhD in statistics, another sister majored in math and went into business, I have a BS in engineering, but decided I didn’t like engineering. I breezed through my college classes and graduated very high in my class at a decent engineering school. Somewhere along the way I realized it just wasn’t for me.</p>
<p>Both my D’s do very well not only in math, but every subject in school. They have a lot of options. I am very bothered by the stereotypes of girls and math, because it does not take into account individual performance and preferences. Many girls perform well in math but do not pursue it as a career. I don’t think it is all cultural, but I hate when the whole gender is dismissed when there are some girls with a genuine interest in the field.</p>
<p>Looking at highlandMom’s link below, there are over 35,000 girls who scored in the 700-800 range. Certainly doesn’t mean girls can’t do math.</p>
<p>Two math team captains in a row in S’s high school were girls. They were both extremely talented in various subjects, not just math & science.They both ended up in non-math, not even science majors. In S’s 20 person graduate cohort, there is only one (!) woman.
I have, however, noticed that there are more women faculty in math.</p>
<p>Well, there was a post from HighlandMom with a link to scores, but it has disappeared!</p>
<p>I was just rejoicing the other day that my daughter’s AP Calc BC class has an equal number of boys and girls in it. She didn’t even know what I was getting at when I asked for the numbers. In 1978 I was one of 3 girls in a 25-member high school Calculus class. So I think things have improved as far as willingness (and maybe even ability) of girls to take upper level high school math courses.</p>
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<p>Why would the world necessarily be a better place?</p>
<p>As long as the barriers that prevent interested students from pursuing a particular field are removed, is it a problem if the gender ratio in that field is something other an 50/50?</p>
<p>Perhaps there still are some barriers to girls’ interest in and achievement in math; in that case, there is a problem. But if the barriers are gone and there are still more males in math, why is that an issue?</p>
<p>Consider this (somewhat) parallel situation: The barriers to women’s participation in veterinary medicine have evidently been removed, and now at some veterinary schools, something like 75 percent of the students are women. Should we be worried about the decline in male veterinarians?</p>
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<li><p>It’s worth remembering in a thread like this that differences are relative, not absolute. Even if there is some biological basis for the higher proportion of boys among top test-scorers, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t girls who are as good as the best boys, just that there will never be quite as many of them. And we don’t even know if that’s true – it’s just speculation. It’s not “girls can’t do higher-level math”, just as it’s not “boys can’t write”.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s also worth remembering that maybe the girls/women are RIGHT in their choices. The best students usually want to do important work, but women seem to disproportionately define “important work” as involving relationships, working with and caring for other people, and men seem to disproportionately define important work as accumulating a high score (in points, or dollars) or building impressively big (or impressively small) things. It doesn’t strike me as a terrible tragedy or waste of human potential if the women disproportionately want to cure cancer and negotiate world peace, and are content to let more men than women trade derivatives and ponder manifold topology.</p></li>
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<p>mamabear, I deleted the link because I wasn’t sure it was relevant - it is vague at best. In rethinking, I don’t know whether “nearly twice as many boys as girls scored in the 700-800 range” is meaningful. How many boys vs. girls TOTAL took the test. As they say, you can make statistics say what you want them to say ;)</p>
<p>Regardless, here’s the link from College Board. And I apologize for my confusing phantom posts ;)</p>
<p>Table 5, page 2:</p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/cbs-2009-national-TOTAL-GROUP.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
<p>Of course it’s relevant. We know that girls represent about 55% of the test-takers. The thesis of the article cited by the OP was that the “extra” girls taking the test were less prepared, and pulled down the average score for girls – something that may very well be true. So it matters that a lot more boys than girls score 700+, because the presence of less-well-prepared girls doesn’t explain the performance of the perfectly-well-prepared girls.</p>
<p>What is potentially misleading about that chart is that its categories are not refined enough. My daughter would have been included in the girls scoring 700+ numbers, and she is practically allergic to academic math. Really, we are talking about students who get 800s on the math section of the SAT, a group in which boys outnumber girls (I think) by about 4-1 (can’t remember where I saw that, though, so it may be wrong). And even 800 on the math SAT – something my other, now math-phobic kid had – hardly guarantees aptitude for higher-level mathmatics.</p>
<p>^^That’s what I meant, there’s a huge range between 700 and 800.</p>
<p>S1 has a friend who as a female math major in college described to him that it was not easy. Not because of the math, but the social aspects of being in a male dominated area even when there is no outright difference in treatment. This is unlikely to change until there are more women in these majors and there will have to more women in these majors for this to change. Once the “tipping point” is reached, my guess the differences will tend to disappear.</p>
<p>My younger daughter (D2), a current 8th grader, participated in Duke TIP last year (in her 7th grade), took SAT I and scored 800 on math section with CR and WR sections both above 650 and an overall score in the mid 2100. </p>
<p>She went to Duke TIP summer program, did “debate and mock trial” and found out another girl “mock trial” class, who also took SAT I in 7th grade and earned 800 in math section. That girl’s total score was near 2200. </p>
<p>Look closely now: Both girls went to Duke TIP for “debate and mock trial” classes, not math or other math-related classes (which were available). Both girls were very advanced in the CR and WR for their age. I would assume that these two young ladies would have potential to become successful “hard core” scientists, but talking about their interests would be another issue. </p>
<p>I personally believe that there is a biological difference in male and female. This biological difference is probably not reflected in the natural intellectual ability but in the natural interests.</p>
<p>Both DDs are much better at math than I. One is majoring in English, the other in Math. Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean that you like it. IMO, girls have been catching up to boys because of sports. Math has traditionally been a subject where you try things, see what doesn’t work, and then do what does work. Boys have always been willing to work like that, similar to what happens in sports. Since girls today play more sports they are starting to develop similar reactions. That could also explain the influence of computer games.</p>
<p>I’m sure I could have put that more eloquently…</p>
<p>The ratio disparity is most pronounced at the highest level of math competition, almost to the point of exclusion. At the middle school level, [girls</a> accounted for only 10% mathcount participation at the national level](<a href=“Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education - Google Books”>Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education - Google Books). In fact, I hardly remember seeing any girl in the final rounds of the national competition in recent years. At the high school level, only a handful of girls ever made the national International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) team in the history of USA IMO. Other countries have had better representation of girls, but not much better. There is no doubt there are girls that can rival the best of boys at the highest level of math competitions. From 1984 to 1995, there were [7</a> girls who turned in perfect score at the IMO](<a href=“Tanya Khovanova's Math Blog » 2009 » April » 7”>Tanya Khovanova's Math Blog » 2009 » April). For those who are not familiar with IMO, it is arguably the most difficult pre-calculus level international math competition. Many math professors at elite universities would have trouble solving these problems within the time limit of the test.</p>
<p>It is also true that proportionally more women abandon a major in mathematics than men (see first referenced link). The US seems to be lagging behind many countries in getting and keeping women involved in mathematics. [There</a> was a study](<a href=“http://www.ams.org/ams/press/gallian-nots-nov08.html]There”>AMS :: News from the AMS) that looked at the representation of women among the faculty in five of the very top US research university mathematics departments. Just 20% of the women in these elite departments were born in the United States. Of the 80% born elsewhere, many are immigrants from countries in which girls are frequently members of IMO teams.</p>