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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.
I have seen the data, yes girls do better in math in progressive societies, relative to boys, but they also do better in language and all areas of schooling relative to boys. In other words, girls do better in school overall and of course one of the measures of a progressive society is how well girls do in school. Thus they found that in societies where girls do better in schools, they do better in math also. What people should ask is how to get the best performance out of boys and girls and which countries have found a formula for that.
doubtful
That's the beauty of the scientific method. It gives us a framework to actually test such things, so we don't have to rely on "well I doubt it, therefore you are wrong and we should not study this further".
In the old days (not THAT long ago, say 20+ years back), this used to simply referred to as being a parent.
A parent is NOT there to be a child's friend.
I became great friends with my parents when I was in my mid-20's or 30's or so....but when raising kids, you have to sometimes be unpopular and be the rules maker and enforcer.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Stereotype much? My wife decided to stay home. She isn't unfulfilled. Her main complaint with doing so is it makes it harder to afford things. I'd encourage her to return to employment if she wasn't finding fulfillment staying home, but I'm not going to tell her to go drudge away for a nicer car or a bigger house while she pines away at the time missed with the kids like I do. Society nor I should tell her that she has to stay home, but they can f#@$ off telling her how to feel if she makes that choice. Especially when the pressure on that choice is an attempt to draw twice as much profit from the things my grandparents had with just one salary.