<p>Interesting debate. I have two daughters. The oldest is a current Brown Senior who majored in math and already has excellent job offers. The youngest is a freshman at Amherst College who is also majoring in mathematics. Their grandmother has a degree in math. You can claim genetics Ill claim exposure. We ensured that they had adequate math exposure when they were very young and that they had FUN with it. Math excites them for different reasons and in different ways. And neither has had extensive exposure to video games though Treasure Math Storm had the older one comfortably handling multiplication & division before she was 5 </p>
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<p>Can’t speak for other all-girl schools but not so in this case. On provincial exams (standardized test across over 1000 highschools), they come in 1st or 2nd. Likewise, the kids who transfer into publics tend to skip at least one grade in math.</p>
<p>Interesting opinions. Erin’s Dad - I like your sports theory - it makes since to me. I was a math major and I always said that I did well in it only because I had the patience to solve the problems. Mathmom - I like your legos reference! Our DD NEVER played with blocks and because of her older brother she had plenty of chances. She has to work hard in math - she just doesn’t “see” it. She has SO many other gifts, this will not hold her back.</p>
<p>D was a late-bloomer in Math, even though she was sent from 4th-grade Math to 5th-grade Math because the former was too easy.
One her few high school B or B+ grades was in 9th-grade Honors Geometry, though I think the “discovery” method of that class was horribly conceived or taught.</p>
<p>As late as 10th grade, she was planning on taking just one Math class in college: whatever Stats was required of her major.</p>
<p>But 11th- and 12th-grade Calc AB and BC really clicked and she wound up being a double major that included Math. She got an 800 on her GRE Quant (not a particularly exclusive club) and is contemplating graduate work in Econ, which is pretty math intensive.</p>
<p>She did comment a few months back that she was aware of the various math competitions in middle school but thought they sounded pretty dorky and she wouldn’t have let anything interfere with ballet in any event.</p>
<p>Ah, the trouble with standardized test results. Forgive me if I overlooked someone’s post, but the SAT does not test on a particularly high level of math. It is difficult for students in high schools where they do not learn advanced arithmetic, let alone algebra. These students end up taking remedial math in college if they go to college. I don’t know if there are statistics on the gender difference in results of AP Calc or AP stats, which at least is test at an advanced level. While we are so use to evaluating students based on these tests, as well as Iowa, Terra Nova and the others that I am not even familiar with, they are after all just tests.</p>
<p>I am familiar with a number of students who did not score as “gifted” on the tests given to elementary and middle school children, but ended up as fabulous math students. What happened here? Some say they are overachievers, a term that I find a bit offensive. Then those who tested great, and did not ultimately produce great results, what happened? </p>
<p>I guess I just don’t like aptitude as a benchmark. Just put up the numbers.</p>
<p>anothermom2, one of the attractions of using the SAT is that a very broad group of students takes it – 1.5 million, something like half of all high schoolers, and a large majority of those who plan to attend college. With the AP math tests, chances are that they are extremely affected by girls’ deciding not to take the relevant courses (and perhaps by super-high skill levels of those who do). Only about 73,000 students take the BC exam, and about 30,000 get 5s. (Although, come to think about it, that’s not so many fewer than the 96,000 or so who get 700+ on their SAT I math.)</p>
<p>The APs are also affected by teacher skill and curriculum to a much greater degree than the SAT Is.</p>
<p>JHS’s earlier posts are on the money. </p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Math-Percentile-Ranks-2009.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
<p>Actually, I was way off on the 800 score. It’s only a little more than 2:1 boys (69:31), not 3: or 4:1. That holds true for the top 1% of test-takers: boys outnumber girls 2:1.</p>
<p>Yes, despite the girl test takers outnumbering the boys by 8:7 overall.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<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."</p>
<p>It is quite possible the reason a school such as Harvard might seek a 50/50 ratio as a valid goal in hiring math faculty would be to null out the factors that peel girls away from serious math study. Mentor and role models are significant in drawing and keeping students in a particular field. Though anecdotal experience tells me one factor that pulls women out of the engineering and perhaps math fields is how they are treated by classmates. My daughter is one of those scoring 800 outliers. She started in Engineering. She is now in psychology. She commented that she appreciated psychology courses in not one study partner has felt the need to make a pass at her. Having graduated in Engineering many moons ago, I was sadden to hear things had not changed in that many years.</p>
<p>I happened to run across the CTY data this afternoon. If you look at the CTY scores 8 times as many boys as girls score an 800 in 7th grade. Interestingly it’s then only 3 times as many in 8th grade - and a small enough number in either case that someone who knows statistics can tell me it’s insignificant. I forgot to look to see if more boys are taking the test.</p>
<p>Here’s the deal, as interpreted by jonri: </p>
<p>There’s a lot to be said for the fact that eating your meals out of little cartons that someone else has prepared for you for portion control may help you to lose weight initially, but it is not going to lead to long-term chances in your lifestyle which will enable you to keep weight off. Moreover, a lot of us are genetically predisposed to be a bit “hefty,” and it’s inevitable that most of us will add a few pounds as we reach our 50s.</p>
<p>That’s a perfectly reasonable position, but if I were running Weight Watchers, I wouldn’t hire someone with that attitude to run it. </p>
<p>Nor am I going to hire someone who has Summers’ attitudes to run a co-ed university.</p>
<p>I just came back to add one more thing:</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, I am a girl who is interested in engineering, and I think I’m pretty good at math/science. However, I have to say, I’m not one of those people who is only good at math/science. I’m pretty verbally talented, and that shows up in my test scores especially.
My college counselor took one look at my 800 CR, my 780 Spanish SAT II, my 5s on the Spanish and US History APs and couldn’t understand why I was interested in math/science. I still have <em>no</em> idea how the US history thing happened, but yeah, I can read decently, and I’m pretty good at languages. It’s not as though my scores in math and science were so much worse; I did better on the Math SAT II than the English literature, but I had to argue a lot with my college counselor about applying to engineering programs. She kept getting stuck on the fact that my transcript and test scores seemed “well-rounded” as she put it; i.e. it wasn’t as though I only did well in math/science and did terribly in the humanities.
However, what she (among others) chose to ignore was that fact that I kept telling her I <em>like</em> math and science, a lot better than most humanities, in fact, as is evidenced by the math/science heavy schedule I chose for my senior year (the first time I really had a lot of say in what courses I took).
I have had a lot of people react similarly - I don’t know if this happens more to females than males, but people seem to have a really hard time accepting that I want to focus on math and science when I’m not a total failure in the humanities.
I have a friend who is applying to Carnegie Mellon SCS - she is one of those math/science only people, and it’s really obviously from her test scores/transcript - her counselor was much more understanding of her interest. Our math scores were actually pretty similar, hers being slightly higher, and my math grades were actually slightly higher, but she is obviously weaker in the humanities, which somehow seemed to make the counselor more receptive.</p>
<p>I’m sure it happens more to girls than boys. On paper my oldest looks very well rounded. Highest score was CR, 5 on USHistory and Latin, but anyone who knows him knows he’s a math guy through and through. No one ever suggested he shouldn’t go to a tech school.</p>
<p>Well. I’ve been away all day and happy to see that the discussion continues. I laugh at myself for starting a thread that I had to know would involve statistics. As soon as the numbers start getting quoted I zone out. This has always been my problem with math and I guess it is part of the reason that this interests me and angers me at the same time. From an early age, I suffered from math anxiety.
I think that the issue is a combination of factors. None of them, though, are an “intrinsic” lack of ability in the female brain. I do believe that there are differences in the learning styles of all people and that, perhaps, these learning styles tend to correlate with gender. On a continuum, of course. It is likely that the traditional roles that have been assigned in our culture have bred a style of instruction that favors the male style of learning over the female style. This led to a diminished interest, among girls, in these areas of study due to a feeling of inadequacy. This was fueled by the lack of encouragement (sometimes well intentioned) that resulted and so…the cycle continues. </p>
<p>I have come to believe that, had I had instruction in math that matched my learning style, I would have done well in the subject and even liked it. I guess that can be said for any subject, though.</p>
<p>Here is an example. I teach art in an elementary school. i recently took a course that discussed gender differences in relation to learning style and style of self expression. The book that we read pointed out that when children draw, girls tend to draw “nouns” and boys tend to draw “verbs”. We have all seen it. The little boys “action” drawing and “battle” art (and, yes, I know that this is a generalization and that there are many exceptions). The book discussed the issue that our society values the “female” style art over the boy art. And it doesn’t take long for the boys to catch on and lose interest in art making. Subtle signals form the adults, vague compliments and insincere praise all work to discourage the “boy” drawings and encourage the “girl” drawings. Well what do you think the ratio of girls to boys are in high school art classes? By the time they reach their teens, many of the boys have gotten the message and moved on to other areas of interest. If you look at this only from a superficial vantage point, you might conclude that girls are just “better” at art.</p>
<p>^^^My son was one who was nominated every year for the gifted program, but never accepted. Now he has a 99 average in AP Calculus without even trying.</p>
<p>I’m a female engineer. My grandmother was a math and chemistry major. My dad is an engineering professor. So it’s probably in my genes! I should say, though, that my spatial abilities are very poor. I have a hard time “seeing” things three-dimensionally in my head. I’ve improved, but it’s taken a lot of hard work and concentration. I know that it comes much easier to DH, who is also an engineer.</p>
<p>I loved college, even though there weren’t many women in engineering. I never struggled at all in that respect. I was one of the gang, and we had a great time.</p>
<p>My two boys are in advanced math. My youngest is a girl, and she doesn’t like math! She has a hard time with fairly simple concepts, although she tries hard.</p>
<p>EPTR I’d never heard that about boy’s art and girl’s art and SOOOO true! (At least in our family!) I could never figure out why drawing involved so much noise in our house, it was all space battles. Though younger son did go through a period of drawing boats and ships - of course 1/2 of them were the Titanic headed for the iceberg…</p>
<p>Mathmom</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve seen a million of those drawings!! Of course, teaching art, this isn’t new to me but I had never really considered the subtle messages that we send children about the way that they approach a problem. I know that I try hard to be a positive presence in the classroom but after taking that course I did become even more conscious of acknowledging the legitimacy of the various methods of self expression. </p>
<p>I am convinced that this undercurrent of disapproval is a very significant part of the problem with girls and math.</p>
<p>And JHS
I’m not sure I understand your logic about the AP exam. It seems to me that Anothermom2 was making the point that if AP scores were used as comparison of male and female scores, it would be comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. If fewer girls take advanced math courses, the general population of girls are going to be at a disadvantage on a test that is widely applied and broad in content. If only the population of male and female enrolled in an advanced course were tested on the content, wouldn’t it give a more accurate comparison? I do agree that quality of teaching is a factor that would be difficult to take into account.</p>
<p>Looking at AP scores might tell us a lot about girls who take AP Calculus, but that’s a pretty complex group, and it would be hard to tease out anything about girls in general from it. The advantage of the SAT is that it’s not really a hard math test, content-wise; literally millions of kids basically know the math required. Also, the AP doesn’t have a lot of fine gradations – there are only 5 grades available, and 30% of the takers get a 5. If we took the top 30% of SAT scores, there would hardly be any difference between the men and the women – the women have largely caught up by then – so we wouldn’t know about the extreme disparity in the top 1%.</p>
<p>another math chick here. didn’t play with legos as a kid, so not good at the spatial stuff, but who cares as there is plenty of other math to go around. algebra, set theory, discrete math are more my style. I just like numbers. </p>
<p>I find the statistics about the test results boring (that is why I skipped pages 2-3, so have only ready about 50% of the posts). What really matters is that everyone should love numbers just as we are all urged to love reading.</p>