Girls From Progressive Societies Do Better At Math, Study Finds (sciencecodex.com)

An anonymous reader writes: (edited and condensed)Research by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has found that the 'maths gender gap', the relative under performance of girls at maths, is much wider in societies with poor rates of gender equality. Published on Monday in the American Economic Review, the research shows that the performance gap between girls and boys is far less pronounced in societies that hold progressive and egalitarian views about the role of women. The researchers analyzed the relationship between maths scores of 11,527 15-year-old living in nine different countries and the Gender Gap Index (GGI) in their country of ancestry. The GGI measures economic and political opportunities, education, and well-being for women. The researchers found that the more gender equality in the country of ancestry, the higher the maths scores of girls relative to boys living in the same country. The findings were significant and robust even when the researchers controlled for other individual factors that may affect youths' maths performance. In particular, the results show that an increase of 0.05 points (or one standard deviation) in the GGI is associated with an increase in the performance of girls in maths, relative to boys, of 7.47 points -- equivalent to about one and a half months of schooling.

Comments

Helps boys too

[AmiMoJo]

There seems to be a correlation with boys doing better too. Of course correlation is not causation, but anecdotally teachers say that girls being more engaged in maths helps the whole class.

Re:Because they do it at all

[ShanghaiBill]

This study already provides evidence that parents in progressive societies are better parents, because they are at least better at educating their daughters in math.

Disclaimer: When my daughter was in elementary school, she placed 2nd in the district in the Math Olympiad, but now that she is a teenager, she thinks I am a terrible parent.

Re:Because they do it at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Reactionary positions aren't necessarily wrong. Those traditions weren't 'terrible', just rigid, and they were needed for society to function. The difference between survival and starvation depended greatly on the manual labor capacity of the family. Thus she was on her back or in the kitchen preparing food, and meanwhile he was out in the field maintaining the next harvest. This narrative of oppression needs to stop. It was hard for BOTH. Stop lying about history for the sake of your 'progressive' narrative.

This situation imposed on men just as much as it imposed on women. Back in those days, while men were considered head of the family, they were also held accountable for their wives' behavior. If she cheated in the marriage or was unhappy, it was HIS fault. Unfortunately, while we've 'liberated' women, the culture still holds men responsible for her behavior and choices, just without the power to do much about it (eg her body, her right, her choice, his responsibility). Society assumes that any negative outcomes for conflicts, sexual behavior, or face saving is his fault and that she's a victim. Feminists play this card up quite a bit

Re:Because they do it at all

[myowntrueself]

My point was that for people who are bound to be at the top of the middle class payscales, they would be made to contribute far more to the state treasury than their own costs pull out.

If the GP poster had referred to a family of janitors, it wouldn't be so. But he/she said engineers.....

The family of janitors would require at least 3 janitors working for every one child in daycare. It would be more effective to have one stay-at-home janitor and the rest working.

This is where things break down badly; the 'entitled', middle classes have so little idea how the low-end of the pay-scale lives they think their 'engineer' lifestyles give them some kind of insight into how society functions.

Poverty in places like the US and Canada is just fucking massively worse than the poverty in any European country, maybe except some Eastern European countries, the extreme ends of which which still wouldn't be as bad as the extreme ends of poverty in Canada. This is why Bob Geldof can criticize Canada for not being ambitious enough in its foreign aid spending; because he imagines Canadian poverty to be about the same as Irish or British poverty.

Re:Because they do it at all

[TemporalBeing]

In terms of evangelical conservative views, of course they make terrible wives and mothers...

Until you realize that an Evangelical Conservative view a husband and wife are co-equals, differing responsibilities but equal and submissive to each other (Ephesians 5:21-6:4 and Genesis 2:20-25, among other places.)