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.

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.

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: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.

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.