I've heard that statistics such as average SAT scores, numbers of women vs. men enrolling in engineering programs, etc., support the hypotheses that females, as a group, have worse math skills.
just fyi, a few points about this specifically:
1. it's cultural. american and israeli girls have lower sat scores than american and israeli boys. thai and kuwaiti girls outscore thai and kuwaiti boys.
2. relative to boys, girls get better grades in math class than their sat scores would predict. so it's difficult to interpret what this means in terms of their actual math skills -- is the test harder on girls in some way that has nothing to do with their math, or do they get better grades for some reason besides their actual skills?
i guess my point is that even generalizations need to be made with a lot more care than we typically offer them. prejudices, of course, the more so.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 10:49 am (UTC)just fyi, a few points about this specifically:
1. it's cultural. american and israeli girls have lower sat scores than american and israeli boys. thai and kuwaiti girls outscore thai and kuwaiti boys.
2. relative to boys, girls get better grades in math class than their sat scores would predict. so it's difficult to interpret what this means in terms of their actual math skills -- is the test harder on girls in some way that has nothing to do with their math, or do they get better grades for some reason besides their actual skills?
i guess my point is that even generalizations need to be made with a lot more care than we typically offer them. prejudices, of course, the more so.