More or less boys than girls in the top maths set in your dc's school?

[BraveMerida]

It's an interesting observation that in dc's year 4 top maths set, only 8 out of 22 are girls. I'm now wondering what the girl: boy ratio is in other primary schools and into secondary school. I know that, for whatever the reasons may be, by the time they get to the end of secondary it is very unbalanced, but I was surprised to see such imbalance so early on in primary school.

What are you observations wrt maths and the gender gap, what do you think?

[richmal]

I just asked dd aged 10 if boys or girls were better at maths and she replied that she was not sure, but she thought it might be boys as all the science and maths programs on TV are done by men.

[BraveMerida]

it's bad isn't it all the gender stereotypical messages they are taking away, without even consciously doing so.

[BraveMerida]

You could tell her about carol voderman and rachel from countdown though!

[SoupDragon]

DS2's Y8 top set for maths is all boys but that's because it's a boys school :) At primary I think it was fairly even.

[SoupDragon]

I was top set for maths, back int he dark ages, and never had the impression that maths and science were only for boys.

[TheSurgeonsMate]

erroll I thought maybe we were at school together, but I misread your post. Only three of us did double maths a level, and we were all girls.

[richmal]

Thanks BraveMerida, I was trying to think of role models and could only think of Marie Curie.

I don't think the idea that girls can be good at maths, but boys are more likely to be geniuses is very inspiring. Whatever children choose to do, I think it is wrong to tell one half of them there are limits on what they can achieve because of their gender. Who wants to strive for mediocrity?

[BraveMerida]

I'm unsure whether being a genius is a gift or a curse tbh.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I hope you managed to suggest some alternative explanations for that observation, richmal!

There's a table of GCSE results broken down by gender here for 2011/2012. I've not done any stats but the maths results look pretty similar - slightly higher A*% for boys.

While the spread of maths ability may be more 'stretched' for boys, I doubt that GCSE level really makes that discrimination - you don't have to be an outstanding mathematician to get top grade GCSE.

So, on the basis of the outcomes, I'd expect GCSE sets to be pretty evenly divided by gender.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Thanks BraveMerida, I was trying to think of role models and could only think of Marie Curie

How about Rosalind Franklin, famed for not winning the Nobel Prize for work on the structure of DNA, and Dorothy Hodgkin who did win it for determining the structure of insulin? These women were crystallographers, which back in those days required a very high degree of mathematical ability. (Nowadays computers do the work but I know quite a few women who work on the code so need to be able to do what one of them self-effacingly calls 'hard sums' )

[richmal]

Thanks Errol. I home educate so doing some research on women in maths and science will make a nice project.

I was expecting her to say it was about equal and was surprised at her answer. I did explain how in the past women were not given such an equal education, so it was surprising that Marie Curie got anywhere at all.

[sadsometimes]

all girls. Its a girls school chosen partly for the reason that I wanted my daughters to feel that they excelled in maths and science and not get 'pushed out' by boys.

[noblegiraffe]

Girls did better than boys at maths GCSE until they scrapped coursework and now boys have taken the lead again. So who is better depends on assessment method it seems!

Female mathematician role models: Sophie Germain - her parents tried to dissuade her from maths study, she submitted work to university under a man's name until she was found out. She discovered a particular type of prime number now called Germain Primes and did a lot of work on Fermat's Last Theorem.

Emmy Noether - the most important woman in the history of mathematics. Did loads of groundbreaking work, but had to lecture at university without pay as they would only pay men, and the lectures were often advertised under David Hilbert's name

[DeWe]

When I was at school boy: girl in maths was about 18:6
However boy: girl in English and languages was about 4:20.

The school was boy heavy, but I was talking about this the other day and realised that although there were only about 10-15% of the staff were female, but in the maths department it was 75% female. No other subject had such a dominance except girls games which was 100% female. Languages was about 50/50, but I don't think there was a single female science teacher who taught above year 9, and even subjects like English were mostly male.

In both my girl's years, the top group at infant level in all subjects were very girl dominated. The top maths set at juniors is, as far as I am aware though, fairly 50/50, although I believe the top table of the top set is boy heavy, it isn't majorly so.

[Talkinpeace]

Re Women in Maths and Science
DH was discussing this and has decided to point out that there were not many women in politics either in the 19th Century and concentrate on the amazing women in science NOW
Women were horrendously discriminated in the past.
It has changed.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Yes, it's changed - though the playing field still isn't level enough - we still don't get the number of women coming through to lead research groups and get the prizes and publicity.

[Talkinpeace]

Errol
but they are coming up.
people my age (OK I'm old) are leading research teams and are next in line in many departments
but academe still works a bit on buggins turn
give it 5 years and the picture will be changing fast
AND
as per the fascinating "what do you do" thread - a lot of us have no inclination to put in the hours expected to lead a team

[17leftfeet]

Dd yr5 there are more girls

Dd yr 7 it's an even split

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

I don't remember feeling or being told that maths and sciences were for boys and not girls while at school (quite a while ago) but, certainly, once A level choices were made, we did all split along stereotyped gender lines with more girls doing arts, English and languages and more boys choosing maths, science and tech subjects. But I agree with a pp that up to GCSE level, all subjects are pretty easy (for bright kids) so the distinction isn't as noticeable.

[AngiBolen]

DS in Y10 thinks it's about the same. (Although he is pretty oblivious to such things)

When he was in primary school, he was on the top table, and all 6 DC were boys.

[Huitre]

DD is in Y2 and there are five girls and one boy in the top Maths group. I will be interested to see if or how it changes as time goes on.

[spanieleyes]

This year my top set are all girls, last year they were all boys!

[Xochiquetzal]

DS is year 5 and there are more girls in top set for maths than boys, my brothers in year 6 and there are more girls in top set in his year as well, there are more girls in top set for English in both years too.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

For those who are searching for some inspiration on women in Science Nature magazine ran a special feature on this in February. There were some amazing women featured really inspirational and the editor who put it together is a woman with a degree in Maths and a Masters in X-ray crystallography.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Another crystallographer...one of the first two women FRSs was one, so was the last woman to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. (That link is another good place to look if you want to find a woman in a particular branch of science)