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New Study Concludes Math Gender Gap Is Cultural, Not Biological
New submitter germansausage writes "A new study was published today in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, looking at data from 86 countries, to test the 'greater male variability hypothesis' as the primary reason for the scarcity of outstanding women mathematicians. It concludes that cultural and not biological factors are the chief causes (PDF) of the gap in math skills between men and women."
I worked on a grant looking at math skills and correlating with language, gender, age, and other factors amongst three population groups (white, hispanic, and navaho). We followed a group of third graders through the fifth grade, and a group of sixth graders through the eighth grade. Very interesting stuff, and at least in my corner of the US it was very obvious that as students moved on in school they liked math less, felt it had less value, and also performed worse on the tests. In the third grade group almost everyone believed that math was important, that they would use it in their jobs, and stated that they liked math. By the eighth grade only a few still felt this way, and of those almost all were boys. I was the programmer, created the test instruments, database for the results, etc, so I never saw the entire set of results, but heard that the young cohort pretty much proved that there was very little gender or cultural bias against math aside from poverty (which interestingly seemed to indicate a dislike of it).
I find it interesting how many people are apparently completely willing to accept that women's superiority in language ability is biological.
While it is true that many Scots take offense when a kilt is called a skirt, it is not due to a belief that a kilt is not actually a skirt. Clearly as a technical matter a kilt is a type of skirt.
The reason it is offensive is that usually anybody calling a kilt a skirt is not in a technical discussion about types of garment, and is instead intending to be insulting. And if you intend to be insulting to a Scot, he may or may not decide to offer your nose a grand insult.
And I am somewhat of a traditionalist, I did grow up in a highland dance band.
Also "traditionally" a kilt was a single piece garment that covered the whole body, and went further down the leg than the modern "short kilt" which was introduced in the 1700s. If you wore a modern kilt 500 years ago, they probably would also have called it a skirt. ;)