To say that boys are better at high standard maths

No, if your daughter is capable of high level maths then she's capable. Even if there are more men than women capable of high level maths (and I'm not suggesting there are as in my experience very many women are extremely talented at maths) that doesn't impact your daughter's ability to do it or mean she will have to work harder than the boys. Many people of both sexes don't have the type of brain necessary to go to the highest levels. She obviously does so should crack on!

I think the idea that people are naturally/genetically good at maths is a separate issue to the way different cultures feel maths should be learned and the emphasis they put on learning maths and encouraging each person to achieve their full potential (or not).

The ideas that maths ability is improved through effort and that some component of maths ability is heritable are not mutually exclusive.

Maybe you should ask Hannah Fry about this.

As explained beautifully by xkcd.com/385/

Maybe it's because boys can count to 21 but girls only 20. That's 5% more maths.

There are group stereotypes and also individuals stereotyping themselves.

Eg someone misses two weeks of school because of severe tonsillitis, comes back and has missed the whole beginning bit for quadratic equations so it doesn't make any sense. Sees everyone else managing it fine and concludes "I must not be good at maths" and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. (Maths is worse for this than other subjects because there are so many bits that depend on understanding the stage before it's easy to fall of and never recover.) And in the exact same way someone can think I'm not good at maths because people in my family aren't/because girls aren't etc and it has the same effect. It is why bad maths teachers are the worst type of bad teacher to have. Especially ones with sexist/stereotyping attitudes.

It's not UK only, but it definitely is cultural, and it's UK, USA, Canada, Australia, some NW European countries.

Stereotype threat comes into it a lot, too. If you keep saying things like, "boys are better at maths, girls just aren't as good," that will affect the performance of girls.

Thank goodness I didn't have parents or teachers who thought like you. I'm in my mid 50s, did science and maths A levels and went on to do a maths degree. No one ever told me it would be harder because I was a girl.

If you care about your daughter and her future, you need to read the book "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado-Perez before you damage her further. In fact I would suggest that this should be required reading for everyone!

The idea that people either naturally good bad at maths is quite UK cultural I think. In countries with stronger numeracy levels, like China, maths ability is recognised as something that develops through effort. Hannah Fry spoke about this to the House of Lords Inquiry into Numeracy earlier this year (will I get in trouble for posting a link to the session recording: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/c8638e42-20e6-4d76-a6ff-3d44a4450e21 ?)

@Persephonia1966, I lam, indeed, a musician and you are correct in saying that there is much in common with maths. It is the logical and sequencing side of maths that particularly comes to the fore in music. I love numbers and learnt all the multiplication tables before I was seven - the foundations of maths in the same way that scales and arpeggios are the foundations of music. I tell my pupils this and go on to say that we use the multiplication tables every day in one form or another in the same way that scales and arpeggios appear in the vast majority of pieces. Once learnt, they are a short cut to learning pieces. However, there is also a crossover with the type of brain that makes learning languages easier and the imagination, too.
Although people can have an innate talent for something, good teaching is crucial whether or not someone finds something easy in order for them to reach their full potential. When I was at primary school in the seventies, we were taught the four rules of number before anything else and practised and practised until we were confident. It was a very firm foundation and I am very grateful for it and my excellent teachers.

Actually based on your username @Violinist64 I guess you are into music. Arguably the kind of mind you need to be really good at music and enjoy it is similar to the kind of mind you need to be able to enjoy and be good at maths. They are both languages that open up the world. So probably you are quite similar to your mother you just went in a different direction.

There are specific competencies that make people better/worse than maths. The problem is, the type of skills needed to do well in or like maths at a lower level (up to Alevel) is very different to the types of skills needed beyond that when you get into the really advanced stuff

You need the boring stuff to be able to do the fun creative stuff. But the problem is for maths the start is by necessity so dry that it can put people of before they get to the point at which maths becomes mind expanding and creative. Often it's only when you get to A-level that you start to get a glimpse of the real world of maths, whereas for English etc you hit that point much sooner (after doing the grunt work of learning to read which happens around age 4).

So I agree, there probably is such a thing as "maths brain" but lots of people are probably convinced they don't have maths brains too early on.

Boys are better at maths precisely because of attitudes like yours @MellowRubyDreamer . They're better not because they're inherently more skilled at it, but because they're encouraged to do it more and told they're capable at it.

It sounds like your daughter has managed to buck that trend despite the handicap of having you as a parent. Good on her!

Well IMO I think its hard to say whether boys or girls as a group are actually better at maths.

I don't think your thinking is particularly straight. She will not have to "out compete" the boys. The only person she will have to compete with is herself and the standard that is set. And if she is good enough to make the standard that is the only issue, what the rest of the world do is irrelevant.

It seems like there are more men at high levels in maths than women (or at least from my experience). Whether that is because men are better, or whether there are social issues impacting the number of women in maths is harder to establish.

Even if you believe that men are better than women at maths, there is clearly significant overlap in capability, otherwise the difference would be immediately obvious and provable.

If you assume like a lot of things that "maths capability" is normally distributed, and the peak of the curve is say a few % less for the women group than men (completely hypothetical), it still means that a woman at the top of the female distribution will outperform the vast majority of men, in a similar manner to the fact that the top women marathon runners will outperform the vast majority of male marathon runners even though men as a group are faster.

I think the fact that your daughter really wants to do the subject despite the "persuasion" otherwise indicates she is really keen on it. If she is really keen on it then she obviously likes it, is probably good at it and will work hard at it and should be encouraged to do it, not dissuaded.

Have you discussed it with her tutor to see what they think ? I do think a lot of maths skills are innate rather than taught, and teachers should be able to see whether a student, either a boy or girl, has the ability to make it to the highest level in the subject.

Can I recommend searching for “Maths Can Take You Anywhere” to challenge preconceptions about who can do maths (and what it’s good for)? I don't know if your DD wants to be a space engineer or medical researcher or chocolate developer but there are women role models for that!

I agree with everything you have written except for your comment about there being no such thing as a maths brain. While almost everyone can be reasonably competent at maths, some people definitely have more natural talent for it than others; the same as any other skill. In my earlier post l mentioned my mother's aptitude for maths. I did not inherit this. I am competent enough and enjoy numbers and mental arithmetic. The logical side of maths appeals to me as it goes with music - symmetry, geometry, ɓasic algebra. This is as far as it goes for me and I was happy to reach O level standard. I do not have the ability to go further. I am musical but also much better at English and languages than I am at maths and science.

No that’s a load of nonsense and perpetuating the stereotype that girls are bad at maths I have boy girl twins who are teens and I think the issue is that the girls are less confident in maths (speaking as a female with a maths degree and career in maths not a teacher though)

Your response is one of the reasons boys are generally better at maths

I'm very good at maths. I have a master's in engineering

All my DC have been good at maths. I'm good at maths. I taught my DC maths at home. My DS might be slightly better than my 2 DDs at maths, but I wouldn't say genetically men are better

Haha. My daughter hates languages and is good at all things STEM. How does that fit into your world view?! 🤯

She's either very good at maths or she's not that good.

My DD excelled at Maths. It came to her naturally. Her and another boy were at the same level. Both got A* at maths and further maths.

It never occurred to me to think she might not do as well because she was female. And she didn't need to work hard at it. She put much more efforts in her biology a level.

Oh right I see, definitely on the wind up.

Dorothy Vaughan was an American mathematician and one of the first African-American women to work as a supervisor at NASA. She made significant contributions to the space programme, particularly in the early use of electronic computers.

Wonderful film about her, Hidden Figures, the African American women at first had to walk hundreds of yards to another building to use the loo!

I once told a boy in my A level group who had similar ideas that it was what's between your ears that matters, not what's between your legs.
I found there were slight differences in attitude though, if a topic at any level was quite hard it was usually the girls who would really stick to the script to learn it, some boys would look for short cuts which rarely worked although I do recall a couple of very good ones An 8 years old boy taught me a totally different approach to subtraction!
Encourage your daughter to follow her dreams, you may learn a thing or two.