<p>It includes statistics on the SAT CR+M performance breakdown. It compares takers by gender and ethnicity.</p>
<p>My question is, doesn't this statistics prove or at least heavily suggest that females are <em>on average inferior</em> to males in the math/sciences? (alluding to dear Mr. Summers) Doesn't it also suggest that whites/asians are <em>on average</em> smarter than blacks/hispanics?</p>
<p>Would it be racist or sexist to make the above statements? Don't STATISTICS back these claims up?</p>
<p>Your link doesn't work, but the one at the beginning of the chances thread does.</p>
<p>I think that any interpretation of male vs. female scores has to take into account the fact that about 790,000 girls take the SAT each year, but only 690,000 boys do. </p>
<p>In the parts of the country where the SAT rather than the ACT is the dominant college admissions test, essentially every highly qualified kid of either gender takes the SAT. So what I think that the numbers are telling us is that among the less-prepared students, a far higher percentage of girls than boys take the SAT. This is consistent with the fact that among relatively less-prepared students, more women than men go to college.</p>
<p>If more less-prepared girls than boys take the SAT, it's to be expected that girls' average scores would be lower.</p>
<p>As for the verbal/math difference between boys and girls, I suspect that it reflects their interests more than their abilities. A lot more boys seem to be interested in math-related activites. Therefore they spend more time doing math-related things. Therefore they score higher in math.</p>
<p>In science-related fields that girls actually like, they do just fine. Medicine is a good example. At many medical schools, the student body is now more than half women, and they're as successful as the men. But some science-related fields, such as engineering, still attract few women. I wonder whether anyone knows why.</p>
<p>As for the ethnic differences, I think they probably reflect socioeconomic differences rather than intrinsic ability. Kids from poorer schools and poorer families tend not to do as well on the SAT as kids from more affluent backgrounds do. I wonder whether the College Board has statistics comparing kids of different ethnicities but comparable family income levels.</p>
<p>The Asian score pattern may be due at least in part to the presence of some non-native speakers of English among the Asians. But I would love to see the Asian scores broken down by gender, too. I suspect that you wouldn't see as much of a difference between boys' and girls' math scores among Asians as among kids from other ethnic backgrounds.</p>
<p>There seems to be a cultural difference between Asians (at least, Chinese, which is the Asian group I know the best) and other groups with regard to girls' attitudes toward science and math. I don't think it would ever occur to a Chinese girl that these are "boys' subjects." Many of them like science and math and excel in these fields.</p>
<p>There is a prestigious science/math magnet program in our school system. Kids self-select whether to apply but also have to take a test to get in. The program attracts about 2/3 boys and 1/3 girls. The boys are of a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The girls are mostly Chinese, with some Indians and Koreans mixed in. White girls are few and far between, even though the school system as a whole is half white. On the other hand, the school system's selective IB program, which is far more liberal-arts-oriented, is about 2/3 girls, and the proportion of whites among the girls in the program is higher than in the school system as a whole. Is this pattern a function of ability or interests or both? It's hard to tell.</p>
<p>"on the other hand the school system's selective IB program, which is far more liberal arts oriented, is about 2/3 girls and the proportion of whites among the girls in the program is higher than in the school system as a whole."</p>
<p>Just wondering, assuming this is commonplace, ie girls making up the majority of lib arts oriented IB programs, then wouldn't you expect girls to score higher than boys in Verbal, which they evidently do not?</p>
<p>I don't know who would score higher on the verbal if you were comparing comparable groups of boys and girls. I only know that since 100,000 more girls than boys take the SAT, the girls taking the test cannot be comparable to the boys who take it. </p>
<p>If everybody took the SAT, it would be easier to make sense of the numbers.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons that a writing section was added to the new SAT reasoning test was because apparently some people felt that the math and verbal sections were biased towards males. The writing section, supposedly addressing the female thought process and strengths (especially the essay part) was an attempt to bring a little more balance to the SAT I. These stats from the College Board do not include the writing section presumably because it is too new and not enough students took the new SAT it in 2005. Furthermore, the disparity in scores between males and females is not nearly as great as the disparity in scores between Asians and African-Americans/Hispanics. Because such a vastly greater number of females took the SAT in 2005 than males, I wouldn't necessary attribute the gaps in the scores to intelligence. That's just my opinion, though.</p>
<p>With the race bit, you're not controlling for socioeconomic status or quality of high school, so the stats aren't useful for comparing groups. A bunch of people have already discussed the gender issue...</p>
<p>Also, the SAT is a nice tool if used properly, but doesn't have much to do with innate ability in the sciences.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At many medical schools, the student body is now more than half women, and they're as successful as the men. But some science-related fields, such as engineering, still attract few women. I wonder whether anyone knows why.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's an interesting question. There are some fields where I have no idea why the gender balance ends up the way it does. The most and least female-heavy majors among MIT undergrads last year were environmental engineering and aeronautical/astronautical engineering, respectively. Which seem kind of random to me (the second most female-heavy major is earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, which is also pretty random). What is nice to see is that the proportion of women in some of the majors with few women is going up...38% of the EECS majors in the MIT class of '09 are women. So maybe some fields are just late bloomers for being able to attract women.</p>
<p>Jessiehl is exactly right--you cant consider the SAT a valid experiment because it doesn't control for socioeconomic inequalities. If you took a group of boys and girls (or blacks and whites, or Asians and whites, or whatever), gave them the exact same education, raised them in the exact same way (level of parental pushing, etc), and removed all societal biases, THEN you could draw conclusions.</p>
<p>I don't think girls are any worse than boys in science but I have realized that a lot less girls are actually interested in it. Has anyone tried to explain why?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Which seem kind of random to me (the second most female-heavy major is earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, which is also pretty random).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Take a look at the report in the link. You need to scroll down to approx. page 10 and you will see that the earth and space sciences have just passed chemistry as the second-most female heavy scientific discipline (biological sciences of course are #1).</p>
<p>Actually, all fields are seeing increases in women receiving PhDs in the sciences over the past 15 years.</p>
<p>Last week there was a very interesting piece in the science journal Nature on gender in science. </p>
<p>The piece said, among other things,
a) "There is little evidence that gender differences in maths abilities exist, are innate or are even relevant to the lack of advancement of women in science."
b) "Studies reveal that in many selection processes, the bar is unconsciously raised so high for women and minority candidates that few emerge as winners. For instance, one study found that women applying for a research grant needed to be 2.5 times more productive than men in order to be considered equally competent."</p>
<p>The full article (and its cited sources) are
Barres, BA. "Does gender matter?" Nature. 2006 Jul 13;442(7099):133-6.</p>
<p>I'm a girl and I did better on the SAT math than on SAT verbal, on both SAT I and SAT II, but I think I'm better at the humanities than I am in science. (This didn't deal with prep either, since I prepped for neither. It's just SAT math I feel relates to more "common sense" stuff, and the SAT verbal requires more knowledge.)</p>
<p>However, SAT math isn't REAL math, so to speak, and it shouldn't mean anything in regards to actually studying or majoring in it. I know a couple people who scored better in verbal and ended up excelling in engineering.</p>
<p>There may be no real evidence that gender differences exist in math, but it does seem like something is going on that I think extends beyond mere cultural indoctrination. As the mother of two little boys I was astounded at how they glommed on to boy activities even when we threw more girl toys at them. Studies have shown that people become experts at many things more through practice than natural ability, but what makes them want to practice. My older son figured out numbers from an early age. The patterns interested him - he looked at a clock and figured out multiplication. Something was clearly clicking there.</p>
<p>i didnt read the rest, but I would like to point out nature vs nurture... people are raised (even within families) with different empases. So asian cultures have more values on education than blacks or hispanics. So girls are expected to be more liberal-artsy and guys more sciencey...
(you may think that is ridiculous, but look at female rolemodels on TV: mostly liberal arts + some home-makers + some doctors. no engineers -- male TV rolemodels: lots more engineers for one)
It is mostly all nurture. I agree intelligence is also nature to some extent. Think of this, how many of you think you would act this way about school or be interested in the same things in school if it werent for parents and money and society?</p>
<p>
[quote]
As the mother of two little boys I was astounded at how they glommed on to boy activities even when we threw more girl toys at them.
[/quote]
Its called “testosterone”. Boys tend to be loaded with the stuff. My girls have all tended to play kindly with one another, cooperatively, requiring relatively little supervision. But my boys – yikes! Those guys growl like bears, beat on each other, and they make guns out of anything. I don’t think I have ever seen one of my daughters pick up a DVD and use it as a gun. All of my sons have done something like this. My daughters will give their toys names like “Rose” and “Katryn”. My sons give names like “Dane Danger!” and “Silencefear!” (actual names).</p>
<p>There are significant psychological differences between boys and girls, and I think many of them are innate and obvious. I think none of them has anything to do with limiting anyone’s capacity for science and math. I think there are ways of approaching and teaching these disciplines that may work better for girls than boys (and I think in the past our society has leaned heavily toward a generally masculine educational approach). But the raw mental capacity for science and math exists in both sexes, and I think it is equal.</p>