Bridging the Math Gender Gap
29/05/2008 21:03
PR Newswire
EVANSTON, Illinois, May 29 /PRNewswire/ --
- Kellogg School of Management expert finds social equality leads
to better math skills for women
The gender gap in math perceived to exist between girls and boys has long
been contested. New research published in the journal Science sheds clarity
on the debate and demonstrates that girls perform better in mathematics in
more gender equal societies, in some cases besting male peers.
The research, led in part by Kellogg School of Management Professor Paola
Sapienza, sought to address the issue of whether social and cultural factors
influence women's success in math and science. Sapienza and her colleagues
Luigi Guiso (Instituto Universitario Europeo) and Ferdinando Monte and Luigi
Zingales (University of Chicago), empirically investigated whether a global
gender gap exists in math to understand the relative importance of biology
and culture on the development of basic mental attributes that are valuable
for conducting math and science.
"The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially
correlated to environmental factors," says Sapienza. "The gap doesn't exist
in countries in which men and women have access to similar resources and
opportunities."
In search of bridges across the math gender gap, Sapienza and her
colleagues analyzed data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries. The
large number of subjects and broad range of social systems represented were
key to the validity of the study. Each child took the 2003 Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA), an internationally standardized assessment of math,
reading, science and problem-solving ability.
Based on the PISA analysis, Sapienza and her colleagues determined that
while the global pattern shows that boys tended to outperform girls in math
(on average girls score 10.5 points lower than boys), this advantage was not
always the case. In a few countries, including Iceland, Sweden and Norway,
girls scored as well as boys or better.
Sapienza and colleagues examined social features that might explain the
variance from country to country. The team used four tools to measure how
well women were integrated into each society compared with men. These tools
were the 2006 Gender Gap Index (GGI) developed by the World Economic Forum
(WEF); the World Values Survey; the percentage of women aged 15 or older who
are eligible to work in each country's labor force; and the WEF political
empowerment index, which measures the representation of women in government.
Sapienza's team found that, in more gender equal societies, the gender
gap in math disappears. For example, the math gender gap almost disappeared
in Sweden (GGI = 0.81), while girls scored 23 points below boys in math in
Turkey (GGI = 0.59). Not only did average girls' scores improve as equality
improved, but the number of girls reaching the highest levels of performance
also increased.
The research also found a striking gender gap in reading skills. In every
country girls perform better than boys in reading. In more gender equal
societies, the girls' advantage in reading over boys increases further. On
average, girls have reading scores that are 32.7 points higher than those of
boys (6.6 percent higher than the mean average score for boys). In Turkey,
this amounts to 25.1 points higher and in Iceland, girls score 61.0 points
higher.
Said Sapienza, "Our research indicates that in more gender equal
societies, girls will gain an absolute advantage relative to boys."
To learn more about the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern
University, visit http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu.
Web site: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu
Meg Washburn of Kellogg School of Management, Office, +1-847-491-5446, Mobile, +1-773-848-4461, m-washburn@kellogg.northwestern.edu; or Nicole Mladic of Manning Selvage & Lee, Office, +1-312-861-5274, Mobile, +1-773-425-1583, nicole.mladic@mslpr.com, for Kellogg School of Management / NOTE TO EDITORS: To see the full article, published in the May 30, 2008 issue of Science, to request specific results about a particular region, or to arrange an interview with Professor Paola Sapienza, contact Meg Washburn.
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