Why are Girls Still Falling Behind in Maths? (The Economist) \ stacker news ~science

pull down to refresh

Why are Girls Still Falling Behind in Maths? (The Economist)www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/06/11/why-are-girls-still-falling-behind-in-maths

1965 sats \ 21 comments \ @denlillaapan 18 Jun science

Here's an interesting one, from Nature via The Economist:

Researchers did massive-sized tests in the beginning of first school year, so pre-schooling; middle; and then again beginning of second year, after a full-first year of (public) schooling.

Being great proponents of home schooling around here you'll never guess what the result was: schooling exacerbates differences. (I can't figure out if girls improve objectively/absolutely; abstract of paper doesn't say): alternative summary = if you want your girl(s) to fall behind in math, TAKE THEM TO PUBLIC SCHOOL!

Lovely summary by the authors

Both The Economist authors and the nature editors throw in ad hoc social explanations like girl perform poorly under pressure or buu-huu outdated stereotypes brainwash the girls into performing worse. Just not very believable...

question remains: WTH are you doing to the kids (read: girls) in that one year??

The study is the first of its kind to show how quickly schooling introduces this divergence. the new study’s findings suggest that girls are not doomed to lag behind boys when it comes to numbers. Just four months of schooling can result in a striking gender gap.

Also lovely to see that initial graph, almost a validation of Greater Male Variability hypothesis right there.

non-paywalled: https://archive.md/sVVB9

view all related items

185 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 18 Jun

Being great proponents of home schooling around here you'll never guess what the result was: schooling exacerbates differences. (I can't figure out if girls improve objectively/absolutely; abstract of paper doesn't say): alternative summary = if you want your girl(s) to fall behind in math, TAKE THEM TO PUBLIC SCHOOL!

It'll be interesting to confirm that assumption by comparing the graphs for kids that have been homeschooled for one year. Is it the school environment, or is the fact of learning math for one year (be it at home, or be it in a traditional school) that causes such divergence? Probably harder to find "equivalent" groups of kids where the only difference is the one of being homeschooled, but who knows.

Also lovely to see that initial graph, almost a validation of Greater Male Variability hypothesis right there.

EDIT: Never heard of this hypothesis, the Wikipedia article seems to be fairly objective on a topic that could be targeted by social justice warriors.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 18 Jun

Careful, let's not tell em!

It's also a pretty respectable candidate explanation as far as I understand, plenty math/psych/evo biology invoking it

220 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 18 Jun

One thing we know about male vs female academic performance is that males focus on what they’re best at and females focus on what they like.

Most of that research is from college level, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of what’s going on.

42 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 18 Jun

Yep, seems VERY likely that it would a large factor if not the entire reason. Of course individuals vary and there are often exceptions. The funny thing to me is how fearful people are about admitting there are differences in men and women, girls and boys. Its absurd. We have over-corrected from the stupidity of the past where women were considered inferior to the idea of universal equality.

Honestly, I think most people know these things but don't feel safe talking about them or even feel like these thoughts are OK. We've been so programmed against sexism we have lost a lot of common sense.

55 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 18 Jun

If you think sex differences make people uncomfortable, you should see how much social scientists squirm when these same sorts of analysis are applied to race.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 18 Jun

Indeed. Or culture. Honestly, I don't know where the lines are but its pretty clear to me that cultural differences even on a generational level account for many things.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 18h

Larry Summers answered this question in 2005

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @NovaRift 18 Jun

Maths? What's that? Who needs it when you have Wolfram Alpha and a Calculator.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 18 Jun

ChatGPT tells me everything I need. What else?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 18 Jun

I can't trust AI bots anymore for factual information (atleast for two- three years more). That bastard hallucinated so bad and taught me everything out of this world and I ended up embarassing myself. Did you read the recent research by MIT that AI is eating your brain? I mean intelligence. Be careful Den!

53 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 18 Jun

The Economist authors and the nature editors throw in ad hoc social explanations like girl perform poorly under pressure or buu-huu outdated stereotypes brainwash the girls into performing worse.

This is so absurd. I'm sure the cultures girls are influenced by varies broadly but in my experience girls do not seem to be hearing or even believing they are inferior in academics. Its the opposite. More boys I've seen suffer from this. This was not the case when I was growing up. I think we've over-corrected culturally and its probably in the process of self correcting.

I've done software engineering for a long time now and I have watched many people learn to code and discover they just don't like it. I'm convinced that most people can do math very well. Its mostly that they don't enjoy it or they do. Of course there is a bell curve but enjoyment of a subject is a massive factor in determining if you get good at it. You have to keep doing something to get better. If you don't like it won't. Of course the learning curve factors in.

I've seen it in music as well. People who give up before they get over the hump on the piano or guitar never get to the fun stage. Those that stick with it usually do love it.

When I was getting programmed on how much of a crime it was that there wasn't equal representation in tech back in the early 2000s I talked to my wife about it. She was puzzled by it. Why does it need to be 50/50? Maybe women just don't enjoy this work? Maybe they would rather do other things? Incidentally she can code and picked it up pretty quickly but just didn't enjoy doing it herself. Of course there was/is sexism in tech. Guess what, its in every field I've worked in. Humans are humans. Flawed and unfair. Often we over-correct and don't think it through. Maybe our goals are the bigger problem.

I firmly believe we need each other. Men and women were designed to complement one another. They aren't all the same but I think we should embrace the differences rather than trying pretend they don't exist. I don't know how deep they are in the mind or brain. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me. Each person is different but patterns emerge and fighting them seems incredibly dumb to me.

47 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 18 Jun

Its mostly that they don't enjoy it or they do. Maybe women just don't enjoy this work?

Well, you sexist pig, don't you understand that women structurally desiring/wanting something different than men is wrong and and obvious indication of a sexist society?

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 18 Jun

I have found that women are the most anti-woman people I know.

26 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 18 Jun

I don't understand why this points to environmental factors. Perhaps all it shows is that small differences in initial ability lead to large differences in outcomes after training / when the material gets harder.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 18 Jun

because that's the meta belief/deeply held prior among most of the intelligentsia and other woke folk: there are no fundamental differences between humans. All outcomes derive from "environmental factors" like sexism, stereotypes, oppression and racism

38 sats \ 3 replies \ @optimism 18 Jun

School systems aren't really universal... I wonder; does this say something about France (if even) or about universal gender related learning issues.

Either way, most such problems need to be solved individually. So I'd pose: how about schools monitor the performance of their students individually and help kids outperform their own wildest expectations?

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @south_korea_ln 18 Jun

School systems aren't really universal...

Yeah, that's an important factor, especially if the environment is the culprit.

70 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 18 Jun

One of my closest friends has been a remedial teacher for about 15 years now. She helps kids improve their basic skills, or overcome many of the struggles caused by for example dyslexia, mostly in a 1-on-1 setting. Her eternal point is that behavior is the number one issue, and school culture (as in among teachers) really makes a difference to kids' behavior: she sees that in the schools her students come from, and some supply a disproportionately large amount of problems.

Not all schools are equal.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 18 Jun

Yeah, reading @cryotosensei on Singapore schools, or looking at the amazing care my son gets from his teachers here, who regularly need to attend training sessions on the latest developments in education science, I concur that our experiences differ from schools in some other places of the world...

However, this is before the Korean/Singaporean-style cramming and cut-throat competition kicks in primary or middle school... so my impression might change in coming years.

33 sats \ 0 replies \ @seashell 15h

Schools kinda reward kids who follow rules, and do what they’re told, girls usually get pushed into that mode early. boys get in trouble more, but they also get more space to mess around and chase stuff they actually care about. I think by the time math gets serious, the system’s already filtered most girls out without even meaning to.

63 sats \ 0 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 18 Jun

Also lovely to see that initial graph, almost a validation of Greater Male Variability hypothesis right there.

I read the Wiki and it seems that theory is actively being suppressed:

In a 1992 paper titled "Variability: A Pernicious Hypothesis", Stanford Professor Nel Noddings discussed the social history which she argued explains "the revulsion with which many feminists react to the variability hypothesis."[40]

In 2005, then Harvard President, Larry Summers, addressed the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on the subject of gender diversity in the science and engineering professions, saying: "It does appear that on many, many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability—there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population."[41][42] His remarks caused a backlash; Summers faced a no-confidence vote from the Harvard faculty, prompting his resignation as President.[43][44]

In 2017, a mathematics research paper by Theodore P. Hill and Sergei Tabachnikov, presenting a possible evolutionary explanation for the variability hypothesis, was peer-reviewed, accepted, and formally published in The New York Journal of Mathematics. Three days later, that article was removed and replaced by an unrelated article by different authors.[45] This caused debate within the scientific community and international publicity.[46][47][48] A revised version was subsequently peer reviewed again and published in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Mathematics.[49]

Contemporary controversies over the Greater Male Variability theories