<p>I think girls tend to self-select such that the weaker students are less likely than boys of comparable ability to take more challenging STEM classes. That is what I’ve seen in several different cases.</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether the situation with minorities is the same or not. </p>
<p>I am a stereotypical Asian FOB who tried to teach (and brainwash) all three math/sci/engg from before the time they were in elementary school. Obviously given the sample size, the evidence is very anecdotal, but I felt a very significant factor was peer-influence. Our chess club had about the same number of male and female 3rd graders where the decision to attend was driven more by the parents, but the ratio was 1 to 5 among high schoolers simply because by then they could choose to attend whatever they wanted, and there weren’t too many females to socialize with. </p>
<p>I felt there was a similar but less pronounced influence re math - a lot more female contemporaries of my daughters wanted to go to med school than engg school, and the themes of many of the academic contests they attended diverged - DS preferring math, comp sci, and engg while the girls went for biological areas. I told them that if they didn’t wan’t to take AP Calc, that was OK not so much because I felt there were too weak for it, but I felt their time was better spent elsewhere. </p>
<p>Can’t comment on OP’s original topic other than saying perhaps the parents’ interest in the areas in question may be a factor. When my kids said they heard AP European history had quite a reputation at their HS and they questioned whether they should skip it, I was more than happy to tell them to spend time on what we all felt was more useful, and just take fluff courses in art, history, and such.</p>
<p>@Dad<em>of</em>3 I think the deficit of women in Engineering has a lot to do with early development. There are other factors of course. I think it has to do something with the fact that boys are often given Lego’s to play and build with and girls are given barbies and dolls as toys when they are little.</p>
<p>@mathyone It seems to be true that boys are more likely to assess themselves as better students than they actually are, while girls are more likely to assess themselves as weaker students than they actually are. </p>
<p>@mathyone, got it. I understand now. Your school sounds like mine. Parents push administrators to place their child into 7th grade algebra I because, well, little Suzy or Tom is in 7th grade algebra. The problem is a student can be smart and hard working and still not be ready for algebra I.</p>
<p>I actually held my daughter back - she’s STILL pretty upset about this as a high school senior. In 7th grade, the teacher said she could skip (ha! wrong work to use) 7th grade math and do algebra I with the 8th graders. I told the teacher, D could do <em>both</em> if she wanted but she certainly couldn’t just bypass a whole year of math. Don’t get me wrong, I know (and am related to) kids who are/were more than capable of jumping into algebra I in 7th grade. I didn’t think my child was one, and coming from a math geek family, I was well aware of the consequences. </p>
<p>I see the results now of the push into 7th grade algebra I. Oddly (?) it seems to show up in standardized tests, especially in the ACT. The kids who were pushed but not quite ready have pretty weak scores relative to their current math level. Even more telling, when they get results back, the students find they get the pre-algebra and early algebra questions wrong (I thought these are the gimmees). The excuse I hear is that they forgot what they learned so long ago.</p>
<p>The phenomenon of pushing students into more advanced math courses than they are ready for may be quite common, due to the existence of two year calculus AB and BC sequences in many high schools. In theory, any student who is two years advanced in math should be easily capable of handling calculus BC in one year after completing precalculus. But some high schools force such students to take calculus AB over one year, then the rest of BC the next year, indicating that there is probably a considerable amount of inappropriate pushing going on in 7th grade.</p>
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<p>Why am I not surprised? </p>
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<p>I agree, but the teachers couldn’t teach, in many cases. Math for many of them falls into the category of magic thinking. (So does spelling.) </p>
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<p>I don’t get this at all. I literally did not learn anything in my Algebra 2 class that was not already taught in Algebra 1, or would be later taught in Pre-Calculus.</p>