Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance

Hyde, Janet Shibley; Lindberg, Sara M.; Linn, Marcia C.; Ellis, Amy B.; Williams, Caroline

doi:10.1126/science.1160364

Cited by 839 publications

(665 citation statements)

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“…Our results suggest that essentialism indeed segregates women and men mostly through internalization. Consistent with previous studies (Xie and Shauman, 2003;Hyde et al, 2008;Riegle-Crumb et al, 2012;Mann and DiPrete, 2013;Morgan et al 2013), gender differences in academic performance almost entirely fail to explain differences in major choices.…”

Section: Multivariate Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

“…In this manner, by the time of transition into college essentialist stereotypes have manifested into divergent relative advantages in ability that drive boys towards math-intensive fields, and girls towards less formalized 'people-oriented' disciplines (Jonsson, 1999;Wang et al 2013). Studies that have scrutinized this argument, however, show that differences in math ability can play at best a very partial role in the explanation of sex segregation in college (Jonsson, 1999;Xie and Shauman, 2003;Hyde et al, 2008;Lörz et al, 2011;Ma, 2011;Riegle-Crumb et al, 2012;Mann and DiPrete, 2013;Morgan et al 2013;Zafar, 2013;Legewie and DiPrete, 2014b; but see Turner and Bowen, 1999).…”

Section: Essentialist Preferences and Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Preferences, constraints, and the process of sex segregation in college majors: A choice analysis

Ochsenfeld

2016

Social Science Research

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The persistence of horizontal sex segregation in higher education continues to puzzle social scientists. To help resolve this puzzle, we analyze a sample of college entrants in Germany with a discrete choice design that allows for social learning from the experiences of others. We make at least two contributions to the state of research. First, we test whether essentialist gender stereotypes affect major selection mostly through internalization or rather as external constraints that high school graduates adapt their behavior to. Empirically, we find that internalized vocational interests better explain gendered major choices than conformance with friends' and parents' expectations does. Second, we scrutinize whether segregation results from women's anticipation of gendered family roles or from their anticipation of sex-based discrimination, but we find no evidence for either of these hypotheses. As in most previous studies, differences in mathematics achievement fail to explain gendered patterns of selection into college majors.

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Section: Multivariate Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Essentialist Preferences and Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preferences, constraints, and the process of sex segregation in college majors: A choice analysis

Ochsenfeld

2016

Social Science Research

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“…Becker & Hedges, 1984;Friedman, 1989;Hyde, Fennema, & Lamon, 1990;Linn & Hyde, 1989) The resolution to the question of whether sex differences in math and spatial ability have been consistent or narrowing over time requires consideration of a number of factors, many of which are discussed later. Factors such as (a) the composition of the tests (consistency is more likely when the test content has remained consistent over time, as changes in its composition can lead to shifts in the proportion of problems that favor each sex), (b) changes in the proportions of each sex taking the test, because as one group becomes more numerous in its participation, its scores go down (and there have been increases in female students taking some tests such as the SAT [Nie & Golde, 2008]), (c) changes in analytic approaches, for example, extreme-tail-sensitive approaches versus OLS (see Penner, 2005), and (d) changes in the type and number of math courses each sex has taken (which has occurred; Hyde et al, 2008). (See Stumpf & Stanley, 1998, for a discussion of additional factors that may be related to inconsistency over time.…”

Section: Right-tail Differences In Broad Contextual Influencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's underrepresentation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations.

Ceci

Williams

Barnett

2009

Psychological Bulletin

808

573

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The underrepresentation of women at the top of math-intensive fields is controversial, with competing claims of biological and sociocultural causation. The authors develop a framework to delineate possible causal pathways and evaluate evidence for each. Biological evidence is contradictory and inconclusive. Although cross-cultural and cross-cohort differences suggest a powerful effect of sociocultural context, evidence for specific factors is inconsistent and contradictory. Factors unique to underrepresentation in math-intensive fields include the following: (a) Math-proficient women disproportionately prefer careers in non-math-intensive fields and are more likely to leave math-intensive careers as they advance; (b) more men than women score in the extreme math-proficient range on gatekeeper tests, such as the SAT Mathematics and the Graduate Record Examinations Quantitative Reasoning sections; (c) women with high math competence are disproportionately more likely to have high verbal competence, allowing greater choice of professions; and (d) in some math-intensive fields, women with children are penalized in promotion rates. The evidence indicates that women's preferences, potentially representing both free and constrained choices, constitute the most powerful explanatory factor; a secondary factor is performance on gatekeeper tests, most likely resulting from sociocultural rather than biological causes.Keywords: sex differences, spatial ability, mathematics, family versus career trade-offs, women in science Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014412.supp By 2001, women were earning 48% of bachelor's degrees (National Science Foundation, 2007) and 29% of PhD degrees (Hill & Johnson, 2004) in mathematics, representing enormous increases over the prior 30 years. Women's representation among editorial boards in science and awards panels similarly increased (Nelson & Brammer, 2008). These changes are evidence of the strength of cultural factors in determining such outcomes, because biology has not changed over this period. Despite this progress, women's representation among PhD degree holders has not coincided with proportional faculty appointments: Women earned 31.3% of chemistry PhD degrees between 1993 and 2003 but in 2002 were hired for only 21.5% of assistant professorships. Similar disparities exist for new faculty appointments in physics, engineering, and mathematics. In 1976 women represented only 7.5% of the faculty in physical sciences and less than 1% in engineering (Dearman & Plisko, 1979). By 2006 the percentage had increased to 16%-25%, but the hiring of assistant professors in these fields has not been proportional to female PhD pools. This hiring disparity extends beyond math-intensive fields.Even in less math-intensive fields, such as cellular and molecular biology, fields in which women obtain 46% of all PhD degrees, women disproportionately drop out at multiple points. The picture is the same across many science fields: Women are not being hired as assistant professors at the ra...

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“…Women and girls continue to be underrepresented in these classes and professions when they have choice in the matter. However, when everyone is forced to take math and science, as in high school, women and girls generally do as well as their male counterparts (Downey and Yuan 2005;Hyde and Linn 2006;Hyde et al 2008;Niederle and Vesterlund 2010). 2 The choice not to focus on (or to leave) STEM as a career for girls and women is not because of innate differences in ability but rather because of the same "push-pull" factors that continue to keep women "opting out" of business and political-leadership positions (Hewlett and Luce 2005; see also Shames 2017;Valian 2004;and Williams 2000).…”

Section: Can Girls Do Math? (If So Why Avoid It?)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, Diversity, and Methods in Political Science: A Theory of Selection and Survival Biases

Shames

Wise

2017

APSC

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At a recent major political science conference, Tamara (not her real name) presented an in-depth qualitative study several years in the making, only to have the panelist speaking after her begin his remarks by saying, "And now back to the hardcore data." By this, he meant quantitative, large-n data, which his work utilized. This moment highlights a series of tensions in our field relating to gender and methodology, and their effects, which this article explores and elucidates.T he state of gender politics in political science is not nearly as "far from ideal" as it once was (Judith Shklar, quoted in Hoffman 1989, 833) but neither is it gender-neutral. The "inhospitable institutional climate" cited in the 2005 American Political Science Association (APSA) Report on the Status of Women in Political Science persists in multiple subtle (and sometimes notso-subtle) ways, as well as in certain spaces (i.e., departments, conferences, and subfields) far more than in others.One of the most obvious areas of gender disproportionality is in the methodology subfield. When areas of the field lag behind in gender integration, it is cause for concern. This is particularly acute for political methodology, however, because it is both a gender-integration laggard and the area of the field that develops the "rules of the game" for good political science. As such, political methodology is not simply a standalone subfield in the discipline; it also informs the work done in most other subfields. The lack of diversity in political methodology, therefore, raises the uncomfortable possibility that some of our "rules of the game" may embed biases based on the relative privilege of those making them.Given the disproportionate focus on and status of highly complex statistical methodology within political science as a whole, the fact that such methodology is far more likely to be the province of men than women is concerning, from both a methodological standpoint and a gendered perspective. As practitioners and critical observers of this discipline, and as methodology instructors ourselves, we are concerned about the increasing status of complex statistical methodology (and the perception that it is somehow "better" than qualitative or far simpler quantitative work) as well as persisting gender disparities in the field-and we see these trends as linked. To be clear, our aim is not to rehash the qualitativeversus-quantitative debate but rather to add a new angle: this cleavage in research methods is not gender-neutral.Anecdotes like Tamara's abound but systematic data on these questions can be difficult to find or collect. Therefore, this article presents a theory based on initial data rather than welltested hypotheses, but these are ideas worthy of discussion and further testing. What systematic data we have found-coupled with useful previous literature and our own experiences-allow us to posit a complex and interactive set of gender-related forces operating within political science and particularly affecting graduate students.Spec...

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Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance

Cited by 839 publications

References 13 publications

Preferences, constraints, and the process of sex segregation in college majors: A choice analysis

Preferences, constraints, and the process of sex segregation in college majors: A choice analysis

Women's underrepresentation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations.

Gender, Diversity, and Methods in Political Science: A Theory of Selection and Survival Biases

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