Will Elementary School Teachers Take the Rap For Tech's Diversity Problem?

theodp (442580) writes "Citing a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (free to Federal employees), the NY Times reports on how elementary school teachers' pro-boy biases can discourage girls from math and science. "The pipeline for women to enter math and science occupations narrows at many points between kindergarten and a career choice," writes Claire Cain Miller, "but elementary school seems to be a critical juncture. Reversing bias among teachers could increase the number of women who enter fields like computer science and engineering, which are some of the fastest growing and highest paying. 'It goes a long way to showing it's not the students or the home, but the classroom teacher's behavior that explains part of the differences over time between boys and girls,' said Victor Lavy, an economist at University of Warwick in England and a co-author of the paper." Although the study took place in Israel, Lavy said that similar research had been conducted in several European countries and that he expected the results were applicable in the United States."

Comments

Stop looking for a single point of failure

[AmiMoJo]

There are problems at all ages. It starts even before school. Don't try to blame one group. Don't blame anyone, just give them the solutions.

Re:Pointing fingers at problems

[amiga3D]

That answer is unacceptable. They must choose science and technology. We must force them to choose because we have these quotas that must be filled.

oh please. I'm tired of this "diversity" bullshit.

[zephvark]

If women don't want to work in tech fields, that's their business. Why this is even an issue is beyond me. How is it considered a good idea to encourage more people to work in fields they're not interested in? Why is tech singled out as the one and only important field?

Re:Pointing fingers at problems

[Dutch Gun]

Correct. We must have gender equality and balance in all fields of employment. Unless, of course, it's a dirty or dangerous job. Men can have those.

Re:Pro-Boy Bias?

[arbiterxero]

This is absolutely correct, I have kids and the school system is definitely set up for the women.

Boys get in trouble just for being boys. All of the ages things are learned at is in sync with when girls mature and are ready for the teachings.

School is not biased towards the boys at all.

in large part the problem is the stigma.

[nimbius]

Being a millenial, I can attest to the fact that growing up interested in technology and science automagically branded you a nerd. You were picked on relentlessly, harassed and ostricized socially, and generally spent a lot of time avoiding direct contact with interpersonal engagements that did not pass a battery of personal safety tests. Chess club or magic the gathering at school was considered your Turing test for a friend. Billy Graham and the moral majority however were convinced you were the devil incarnate for playing the game, which was verboten in many schools despite its keen ability to teach logic and strategy.

Fast forward through the sanguine post columbine era of education by doctrinal purity and it just got worse for nerds. after 1999 nerds faced a pretty large degree of scrutiny and fear. I for one wore a lot of black, kept to myself, made excellent grades, and played a lot of doom/heretic. My prize to claim for having spoken a bit too loudly with friends about a quake match and my affinity for the shotgun with quad damage was an entire week of suspension due to a 'zero tolerance' policy. I failed calculus, spanish, and was left scrambling to figure out how i was going to graduate based on this seemingly arbitrary application of "justice." my parents were angry at me, and i in turn was angry at them for having never taken my side in the ordeal but i digress. If you believe that the tech diversity problem is due to inherent gender affinity and poor marketing to minorities, you're sadly mistaken. People avoid STEM because they dont like being beaten down like subhumans.

You have got to be fucking kidding me

[Iamthecheese]

Let me summarize this entire thread so we can get back to stuff that matters:

"Men and women are different, deal with it" (rotates between -1 flamebait and +5 interesting)

"That hasn't been proven" (+3 insightful)

"Gamergate is evil" (+3 troll)

"Gamergate is good" (rotates between -1 flamebait and +5 interesting)

"Here's a comprehensive discussion of the merits of this article" (no moderation)

"The patriarchy is real" (+2) "No it isn't"(+4)


Here's my own input:

Slashdot will you PLEASE stop running the sjw story of the day. You're not fooling anyone and it will never come out the way you want until you start actively censoring comments. And pushing clickbait isn't giving you any points either.

Everyone who holds a gender-based opinion on this: PLEASE take half the time you would otherwise argue about this and review the latest studies, but take into account who funded them and the difference in funding dollars for two conflicting points of view.

Everyone else: I hope you see the obvious agenda-pushing that has been happening these last few months and inoculate yourself against it with knowledge.

The problem is the "social sciences".

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only one problem here, and it's called the "social sciences".

These are pseudo-academic programs that have been put in place in many institutions of higher learning. While this gives them the aura of legitimacy, the fact remains that their methodologies are not worthy of being called "science", and their standards are quite poor when it comes to performing research.

By lacking the solid foundation that real fields of science like physics, biology and chemistry have, the "social sciences" degrade into debates about the merits of different -isms ("feminism", "communism", "racism", "genderism", and so on), and once that's been discussed to death, they just start making up problems ("diversity in the tech industry") to "investigate".

For some participants it's just an easy way to get money. For others, it's a way to fight back against other inadequacies in their life, like a lack of ability. And for others it's just a power trip.

Regardless, anything coming out of the "social sciences" should be taken with a really big grain of salt. Or better yet, it should just be ignored. It's likely a big load of bullshit to begin with.

Re:The problem is the "social sciences".

[mothlos]

The ignorance in your statement is mind-boggling and shows a deep bias toward the physical sciences and the number of mod points that it has received just shows how well it panders to this particular audience. The success of physical sciences does not come from their "solid foundation", but from how much simpler their fields of study are. As one moves up the ladder of complexity or murkier sources of evidence, the less predictive they become, not because they are any 'less scientific', but because the science is more difficult. Ecology, behavioral biology, medicine, and archaeologically-based fields all live in the middle of this spectrum and it is evident from the lack of consensus and frequent regressions in those fields.

The biggest problem in the social sciences isn't their practices, it is that their findings are inherently political, so it is very common for them to be used by people with an agenda or even promoted in order to create those tools to do so. While ideologues certainly exist in all academic fields, the murkiness of social science makes it more difficult to discredit their ideas conclusively. Even so, there are large bodies of actionable evidence which must be contended with. Unfortunately, journalists and the lay public rarely have the familiarity with the field or the sophistication to interpret social science research.

Re:The problem is the "social sciences".

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm disgusted, although not entirely surprised, that this has been moderated so high so quickly.

You can't just pick a field of study that you happen to dislike (or perhaps distrust is a better word?) and then heap blame at its feet because you object to the conclusions it makes. There are absolutely legitimate things to learn by studying language, philosophy, history, economics, politics, psychology, etc. Just because the outcomes aren't written as mathematical proofs doesn't render them devoid of meaning. The world is not black and white, and any attempts to force it into such a paradigm inevitably have to discard data in order to make it fit. Even if you pray at the altar of physics and mathematics, you have to respect the fact that at some point even they reach the realm of "maybe," "sorta," and "dunno" so far as we understand them. That doesn't mean quantum mechanics and number theory are meaningless any more than it makes sociology or polsci meaningless. Perhaps more difficult to distil, but not functionally useless. Every field is vulnerable to bad data, conjecture, and ill-fitting conclusions. The social sciences might be more vulnerable than the hard sciences, but it is a tragic mistake to conflate that with a lack of meaning. And do not think that the hard sciences are immune from criticism themselves. The worlds they describe are entirely fictional, idealized approximations of our own. We should not be any less suspicious of their conclusions than of those which attempt to tackle our messy reality.

FWIW, I'm a CS grad and ordinarily a strong supporter of the sciences. But I also studied enough philosophy (minored) to know that a world full of engineers is not utopia, it's a nightmare.

Re:Pointing fingers at problems

[Anonymous Coward]

We must have gender equality and balance in all fields of employment. Unless, of course, it's a dirty or dangerous job. Men can have those.

Yep. I have yet to hear a peep from feminists complaining that there aren't enough women garbage collectors, miners, or fishermen. They only want the GOOD and EASY desk jobs.

Boys and Girls are different

[Dan East]

When I was in Middle School in the mid 80s, everyone knew that computers were going to be a major part of the future. At that time, personal computers did not yet have an OS To Rule Them All, and the amount of things one could actually accomplish with a home computer was relatively limited. Pretty much any home computer of that era booted straight into BASIC, and most people perceived computers primarily as things in which people wrote software for to tell it what to do.

At that time schools were trying to make use of computers in the curriculum (beyond Apple IIs playing Oregon Trail and entering LOGO instructions to move the Turtle), and what most schools went with was BASIC programming. Our school had recently "upgraded" from TI-99/4A to Color TRS-80 (which was upsetting to me, because I owned a TI and could program for it very well). So my entire grade of 7th graders spent an entire semester programming in BASIC. Every boy, every girl - all of us. We always worked in teams of two (mostly boys paired up and girls paired up, as is typical at that age). Further, this was commonplace in most schools of the era.

So here is what we *should* have seen. Since we had boys and girls all being equally submersed in the writing of software for hundreds of thousands of children, if boys and girls equally relate to, identify with, and enjoy programming, then we should have seen a surge of that generation of girls also becoming computer scientists. But we did not. When I was in college less than a decade later, my fellow majors in CS consisted of only two females (and I'm friends with both of them on FB still). One does not do anything related to computers at all. The other is still involved in technology, but is more interested in and active in designing artistic elements at the company where she is CTO.

I think we're seeing the overall, general difference between male and female here. I think it's obvious that different talents and thus careers seem to carry with them trends in certain kinds of personalities. Generally, do musicians, artists, executives, managers and computer science people each seem to have personality tendencies that go along with their career? Those tendencies aren't "learned" by being in the career - those individuals had those traits before they entered their profession. So it is my belief that, generally, the typical female does not relate to software development. Perhaps it is because male and female brains are indeed physiologically different in various ways, and it is more enjoyable and / or natural for a male brain to think in a single-track mode required to deeply delve into one specific thought process for a long time while developing software. Or maybe it's for other reasons along that line.

Regardless, my point is simple. Why is anyone trying to point fingers at our educational system instead of just admitting men and women are different, and women just simply may not like software development?

Re:Pro-Boy Bias?

[Notabadguy]

How do you explain the research that certainly strongly suggests there is such a bias? And given that the bias is assumed to be unconscious, how can you be sure that you don't also have similar biases, affecting your judgement?

Well, for one - the study and research were done in Israel, not in the United States. Despite the author's conjecture that "The results should apply in the United States as well" - Israel is NOTHING LIKE the United States in education, culture, or....well, a lot of things.

What if I visited the Ivory Coast, or the Congo, or Nigeria, and did a study on elementary schools? The headline would read, "New Research Shows lack of White students affects diversity."

Then I wrote a research paper about how there's not enough white children in schools. I'd give that study about the same merit. Israel has radically different social bias - they are virtually a country of martial law - justifiably so because of the daily threats they live with. Their educational system reflects that. Applying it to the United States is bollocks. Israel doesn't learn about slavery and the U.S. civil war, or about our political system or national pastimes in school. Seriously, bollocks.

Re:"pro-boy biases"

[swb]

Pro-boy bias?

As a parent of a 4th grade boy I would say the idea of a pro-boy bias is absolutely laughable.

In elementary school, girls are a teacher's dream -- polite, hard-working, focused. Boys are their nightmare -- boisterous, easily distracted, physically busy and fidgety.

When you walk through the halls and see the student work on the walls, the girls' writing is neat, their sentences well-structured and complete and if there's an artwork component, it's also very neat, colorful, etc. The boys work (with a small handful of exceptions) is almost always the opposite of this.

About the only thing that could justify a "pro-boy" bias would be that boys' end up monopolizing teacher time because they're like herding cats and the girls generally don't need as much attention to get the expected results. But calling this "bias" isn't at all accurate as it implies the teachers have an agenda in favor of boys rather then needing to give them some extra attention because otherwise they won't learn at all.

Why is it even a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's define the basis for this being a problem:

Are we suggesting that in all workplaces, any skew in gender-balance is a "problem"?

There are multiple problems with this position, not the least of which is "free will". Go to any college campus in America or Europe and you will see social sciences and language studies heavily populated by female students. Is this a problem? Should universities limit the amount of women allowed to study Italian? Why or why not?

Hard sciences, mathematics, engineering and computer science on campus are mostly male.

The feminist argument is that this skew in gender balance is the result of prior socialization. But this claim of nurture over nature is not only unproven, it is utterly untestable. Needless to say defining "problems" based on untestable criteria does not pass anyone's logic test. And to pretend that men and women 'would' have the same interests if it weren't for society is to not only discount the empirical evidence of every culture throughout history, but the very real biological and chemical differences between male and female brains.

To suggest that men and women 'would' have the same interests and motivations were it not for socialization despite the empirical evidence to the contrary and the clearly documented biological differences is a desperately unlikely scenario which would need rigorous proof if it were to be accepted. But the cult of feminism -- much like fundamentalist religion -- would rather pretend that it is their platform that is valid despite oceans of evidence that it isn't. Those who 'disbelieve' are infidels and must be silenced.

But let's get back to the original question: Why is it a problem that technology is primarily male?

If it is indeed to be our cultural premise that all careers should reflect a 50/50 gender balance, then what of the 'less sexy' fields which are primarily male? What of the world's most dangerous professions? Logging? Fishing boat crews? Electric powerline installers? Military combat? Mining? Underwater welding? These are no longer strength-related fields. And as we all know, male workplace deaths outweigh female workplace deaths at a rate of 9:1. Where is the feminist outrage against this "problem" of unfair male access to tragic death? (Never mind the fact that it is dangerous work that pays the best, and is a direct contributor to salary imbalances).

But no, "technology" has been singled out. Why? Because it's sexy. It's in the news. And the payouts can be spectacular.

So clearly this isn't about gender equality. It's a power grab.

Re:Pointing fingers at problems

[Theaetetus]

Perhaps, but that wouldn't explain the results of the difference in grading

Did anyone ever stop to think that boys are better, and more interested, in some things than girls (and vice versa)?

I'm getting very sick of the daily "It's our fault that there aren't more women in tech" SJW blame-fest here on Slashdot.

And I'm getting very sick of the anti-SJW "I refuse to read the article, but will expound about how awful SJWs are because of my truthy gut feelings" bullshiat. You didn't read the article. The post you're responding to pointed out the difference in grading, and if you had read the article, you'd realize that GP was referring to:

Beginning in 2002, the researchers studied three groups of Israeli students from sixth grade through the end of high school. The students were given two exams, one graded by outsiders who did not know their identities and another by teachers who knew their names.

In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. The effect was not the same for tests on other subjects, like English and Hebrew. The researchers concluded that in math and science, the teachers overestimated the boys’ abilities and underestimated the girls’, and that this had long-term effects on students’ attitudes toward the subjects.

Now, because you're clearly the slow kid who needs to have everything spoon fed to them, let me repeat: the students took the same test twice, and it was graded by different teachers. If the teachers did not know the gender of the student, the girls scored better. If the teachers did know the gender of the student, the boys scored better. These are farking math tests - there's a right answer and an infinite number of wrong answers. There's no reason that someone should score better or worse based solely on whether their name is Dick or Jane, unless the teachers are consciously or unconsciously discriminating.

So, now do you understand how your comment, "did anyone ever stop to think that boys are better, and more interested, in some thing than girls" is not just irrelevant, but totally wrong? The only thing you've shown is that you are worse than everyone who actually bothered to read the article.

Re:^THIS

[BVis]

No, pay them in line with the critical role they play in our society. And if you think that teachers' retirement benefits are extravagant, that's because overall (at least in the USA) retirement benefits are a joke, if they exist at all. 401k plans are fine and all, but you're putting your future in the hands of Wall Street, which has no interest in whether you can feed yourself after you retire.

The more you cut teacher salaries, the worse the teachers, because anyone with any brains at all will see private sector employment more and more appealing. Yes, there are bad teachers out there. Yes, they can be fired if they fuck up badly enough, union or no. (I'm sure there are plenty of bad teachers that aren't fired because the powers that be know they won't be able to replace them, because nobody wants to teach.) Being a unionized employee doesn't mean you can't get fired, as much as the right would like you to think so. CBAs ensure progressive discipline, not no discipline. In a nutshell, this means you can't be fired because you gave the wrong kid (whose parents are rich and powerful) an F on a test.