Girls underestimated at maths

[GoodyWoolf]

Stereotypes lead to girls performance in maths being underestimated and this could affect their career choices:
www.irishtimes.com/news/education/girls-maths-ability-underestimated-due-to-stereotypes-study-finds-1.4376105?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR3b-xEq7B2c9nk1zQuwfh8jM-pwHWFo5NWjDmlkugmZQH-B4X6J1KSjMg0

It is so depressing to see this still going on.

30 odd years ago, when I went through university (physics rather than maths, but very high mathematical content), the "received wisdom" (aka prejudice) was that women were conscientious plodders who got 2.1s whereas men were either brilliant and got 1st or idle and got 3rds. My female physics prof campaigned for blind marking in the exams - and lo and behold the discrepancy disappeared. Suddenly, it turned out women were just as able as men, when they were marked objectively.

(If you're puzzled by this and thinking "surely marking physics/maths is a yes/no process", the answer lies in how you mark questions which are almost but not quite right, where you're giving marks based on applying the right method but with a few errors along the way. It's relatively easy for a marker to decide "this method is more elegant, even if it didn't quite make it to the correct answer because of a mistake in line 5 of the derivation...")

Shocking and depressing that this is still happening.
It's 10 years since Delusions of Gender was published, but this seems even worse than the stereotype threats etc it discussed.

Oh blimey, is this still happening? It's disgusting. If you'd ask my dad he'll say I was a typical alpha, getting good grades at languages. Actually my language scores were pretty average (like a B or C). My maths scores were the highest of all my scores, the equivalant of an A.

(If you're puzzled by this and thinking "surely marking physics/maths is a yes/no process", the answer lies in how you mark questions which are almost but not quite right, where you're giving marks based on applying the right method but with a few errors along the way. It's relatively easy for a marker to decide "this method is more elegant, even if it didn't quite make it to the correct answer because of a mistake in line 5 of the derivation...")

Also known as "show your workings" I remember this being hammered into me by a teach (literally, almost, it involved the throwing of a meter-stick )

I heard this on the radio this morning doing the school run.

The woman they were interviewing was at great pains to point out that it's purely prejudice, that the research shows there's no sex based difference in mathematical ability, and how important it was to see women in academic maths positions, because even now, she finds herself lecturing halls full of men, and in in a faculty of men.

Her elder sister was apparently very good at maths too, and is what gave her the example to aspire to, rather than believe what society told her, and that rings true with me - my mother is very good at maths, and so it never entered into my head that girls shouldn't be good at maths because I had her, teaching me from my very earliest memories. And my experience with my own children, is that with maths, half the battle is having the confidence to give it a go - to launch in and see if you can figure it out.

My GS is at an all boys grammar school, the maths department is almost entirely female (I think one male teacher who is also PT). GS assumes girls are good at maths, we are encouraging him and telling him boys can do maths as well.

Also known as "show your workings" I remember this being hammered into me by a teach (literally, almost, it involved the throwing of a meter-stick )

Ah, the good old days! Teaching techniques at their finest. "Spare the (measuring) rod and spoil the child," that's what I say

I had one particular proof which was my absolute bete noire - the derivation of the angular distribution of beta particle emission from Co60 (to do with demonstrating the helicity of the neutrino and spontaneous symmetry breaking). I could never get the right answer. But I eventually got so polished in fudging the proof, with the appropriate comments about method in the left hand margin, that I could reliably get it past an examiner without it being spotted that I'd fudged it mid-way!

That's brilliant Cara!

I have been musing recently on my maths feelings. I had definitely absorbed (as a mid to older teen) that unless you were amazing at it, then it wasn't for you. There was no point doing it if you were going to get a B, definitely not a C.

I now think differently, an average grade in A-level maths is so, so much more helpful and useful life (and in lots of other subjects) than an A in some random soft subject, in how it develops your thinking.

The Scottish school system may help in this regard, as children are able to do more subjects to Higher/Advanced Higher than you can doing A-levels.

@ancientgran

My GS is at an all boys grammar school, the maths department is almost entirely female (I think one male teacher who is also PT). GS assumes girls are good at maths, we are encouraging him and telling him boys can do maths as well.

That's good - the sex ratio of teachers will hopefully gradually erode these damaging, outdated lies. DDs primary had a head of maths who was a mathematician; she was very good at quashing any notion of a sex difference in ability. And then there was me writing scientific code at home, with a couple of maths A levels to DHs one. Her girls' GS only had one man among the maths staff - as it happened, the poorest one, he somehow confused her about basic trigonometry. Fortunately I was able to sort that out in about 10 minutes with a bit of paper and a pencil, and her maths got better and better (now a 4th yr Cambridge MEng student). Lucky her! It's so wrong that girls with equal, or greater, inherent ability are stymied by sheer bloody anachronistic prejudice.

Errol, yes I thought the ratio was great for stopping any ideas that girls can't do maths. I suppose the fact that my DD got the maths prize at A level in a mixed sex school would also make it difficult for GS to assume girls can't do maths.

@PearPickingPorky

(If you're puzzled by this and thinking "surely marking physics/maths is a yes/no process", the answer lies in how you mark questions which are almost but not quite right, where you're giving marks based on applying the right method but with a few errors along the way. It's relatively easy for a marker to decide "this method is more elegant, even if it didn't quite make it to the correct answer because of a mistake in line 5 of the derivation...")

Also known as "show your workings" I remember this being hammered into me by a teach (literally, almost, it involved the throwing of a meter-stick )

I wonder how they manage now without chalk & blackboard dusters

I was talked out of changing to A level maths from Geography in the first half term of sixth form. I got a D for the Geography in the end.

Should have changed schools.

DD1 did everything on a small whiteboard - all the way to the 4th year of her MMath. She's moderately annoyed that whiteboards don't really help for the stats models she builds at work. She still has the whiteboard at home though

Friend was given a predicted B for Physics at 6th form, because and I quote 'girls don't get As' well guess what she did. A good job her uni offered her 3 As despite her predicted grade!!

We were very lucky at secondary school, in that the heads of maths and two of the three sciences were women, plus the head of KS3 was a maths teacher, so there was no doubt that girls could do maths and science. Even so, biology was still girl heavy and physics boy heavy.

But, staff clamped down really really hard on any comments from boys about how girls shouldn't be in that class - as the sole girl in her physics class, one particularly loud and obnoxious boy had to apologise publicly to DD after the teacher asked him to tell everyone his current working grade, and did he think that his C beat DDs A.

I was fortunate - as the only girl doing A level physics, one of two doing double maths and the only girl in my chemistry set that firstly, DF was a chemistry teacher, and secondly, I or the other girl always came top.
But, that of itself is problematic - that only exceptional girls would do these subjects.

Sad this is still happening. When I was at school in the 80s my maths teacher was blatantly sexist - told my parents he thought I'd 'peaked' at standard grade (GCSE) level. I was very annoyed so put in extra effort at Maths, got an A for my Higher, beat all the boys and got the Maths prize, ha ha! DD is always saying she's bad at Maths which she isn't. Seems to be still the boys who are in the top groups though so there's something going on.

The woman they were interviewing was at great pains to point out that it's purely prejudice, that the research shows there's no sex based difference in mathematical ability, and how important it was to see women in academic maths positions, because even now, she finds herself lecturing halls full of men, and in in a faculty of men.

It's for exactly this reason I didn't study maths at university, it wasn't that I doubted my own abilities ( I got an A in both maths and further maths), it was that I didn't want to be one of a handful of girls on the course. So it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not even sure why I was so against it, I suspect I wanted to be able to blend into the background.

I am not at all surprised. I have a dd and ds close in age both of whom are very good at maths (their dad is a maths professor so it’s not too surprising). The amount of fuss made of ds compared to dd is really noticeable.
Dd was second in the maths challenge in her school but the student who came top was a girl so when they had to put together a team they gave the place to a boy who had come much lower than her so the team wouldn’t have two girls on it. The message she got was ‘you might get good marks but you’re not REALLY good at it.’
I am really hoping she will do A level because it would be an easy A grade for her but she has never been made to feel good about her skills at it, whereas her performance at more verbal subjects does tend to get celebrated. It’s enormously frustrating.

‘ told my parents he thought I'd 'peaked' at standard grade (GCSE) level.’

Ugh - these little ways they have to write off girls’ concrete achievements !

I have to say that the maths teachers at my DDs mixed grammar were excellent and she was given lots of praise. She did maths, further maths and physics at A level and there was never any issue about it (she did 3 other subjects as well) her physics teacher was always singling her out for her work. She's in her 30s and I hope things aren't going backwards.

Dd was second in the maths challenge in her school but the student who came top was a girl so when they had to put together a team they gave the place to a boy who had come much lower than her so the team wouldn’t have two girls on it. The message she got was ‘you might get good marks but you’re not REALLY good at it.’

That takes me back to my school days. In my upper 6th year, we joined up with the boys school next door, and when it came to prize giving, it obviously started to get a bit embarrassing for them after girls won the physics, further maths, chemistry prizes (swimming against the tide a boy did win the biology prize fair and square) - so they decided to give the maths prize jointly to the girl who came first and the boy who came... fifth!

This is why I’m still grateful that I went to an all-girls school where we could get on with maths and science A-levels in peace.

At primary school, maths was the only subject we were streamed in, in year 6. This was 1999/2000. I was one of the few girls put in the upper set, and got shouted down by boys any time I raised my hand to ask for clarification. (“What don’t you GET IT already, fondant?” “Ugh, really? This is so EASY.”). I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there and like the class was mainly for the boys and I was “interfering”.
I got an average KS2 SATS score.

Went to an all-girls secondary, was never made to feel stupid or in the wrong place, leapt up 3 SATS levels in 3 years. What a difference confidence makes! (Also, to be fair, probably better teaching).

@HopeClearwater

This is why I’m still grateful that I went to an all-girls school where we could get on with maths and science A-levels in peace.

I think it makes a huge difference.

My year (last all girls' sixth form intake): 12 girls doing maths with mechanics, 8 doing physics, 6 doing further maths.

Year after (first mixed sixth form intake): 1 girl doing maths, physics, further maths (and she opted for the maths and stats course rather than the maths and mechanics course).

Of course, anecdote is not data, but I've seen that story replicated in so many other women's experience.