It makes sense to me that this is largely cultural. I think the relavant points about math are that a) it is difficult and b) it takes perserverance to get very far in it. So cultural expectations and self-esteem have a big impact. The preface to Thomas Garrity's book, All the Mathematics You Missed [But Need to Know for Graduate School], is worth quoting at length on this point:
Math is hard. Unfortunately, people are just not that good at mathematics... I know of no serious mathematician who finds math easy. In fact, most, after a few beers, will confess as to how stupid and slow they are... This is one of the hurdles... namely how to deal with the profundity of mathematics in stark comparison to our own shallow understandings of mathematics.
My own experience is that math is wicked hard. Alone with a math textbook, without any external feedback, I quickly come to the conclusion that I am the stupidest bit of goo in the universe. But then I get all this assurance from standardized tests and from my college professors that, really, I am really amazingly good at math... So then I grant that maybe, perhaps, it might be worthwhile to keep tackling the subject.
On the other hand, someone who has internalized both "I am female" and "girls are bad at math", when faced with the difficulty of math, is going to just give up too quickly. In a culture in which math skills are considered un-feminine, boys would be more likely than girls to keep plugging away, which is what is really needed because nearly nobody finds math to be falling-off-a-log easy. But... but I guess in a culture that doesn't contain the "girls suck at math" meme, girls would expect themselves to understand the math they're taught in school as well as they understand other subjects. So the prejudice regarding girls and math is really insideous and self-perpetuating. Has anyone studied attitudes on this subject in Thailand and Kuwait, whether math is considered less un-feminine in those countries?
My own reactions to the 2 statements that got most chicks to give up on math long ago:
I am female: I am a gender-neutral soul that happens to be inhabiting a female body, which seems so irrelevant when I'm trying to focus on math not sex.
Girls are bad at math: They should stop being wimps and try harder.
I have no insight on the discrepancy between test scores and class grades, though.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 12:07 pm (UTC)Math is hard. Unfortunately, people are just not that good at mathematics... I know of no serious mathematician who finds math easy. In fact, most, after a few beers, will confess as to how stupid and slow they are... This is one of the hurdles... namely how to deal with the profundity of mathematics in stark comparison to our own shallow understandings of mathematics.
My own experience is that math is wicked hard. Alone with a math textbook, without any external feedback, I quickly come to the conclusion that I am the stupidest bit of goo in the universe. But then I get all this assurance from standardized tests and from my college professors that, really, I am really amazingly good at math... So then I grant that maybe, perhaps, it might be worthwhile to keep tackling the subject.
On the other hand, someone who has internalized both "I am female" and "girls are bad at math", when faced with the difficulty of math, is going to just give up too quickly. In a culture in which math skills are considered un-feminine, boys would be more likely than girls to keep plugging away, which is what is really needed because nearly nobody finds math to be falling-off-a-log easy. But... but I guess in a culture that doesn't contain the "girls suck at math" meme, girls would expect themselves to understand the math they're taught in school as well as they understand other subjects. So the prejudice regarding girls and math is really insideous and self-perpetuating. Has anyone studied attitudes on this subject in Thailand and Kuwait, whether math is considered less un-feminine in those countries?
My own reactions to the 2 statements that got most chicks to give up on math long ago:
I am female: I am a gender-neutral soul that happens to be inhabiting a female body, which seems so irrelevant when I'm trying to focus on math not sex.
Girls are bad at math: They should stop being wimps and try harder.
I have no insight on the discrepancy between test scores and class grades, though.