Math-gender Stereotypes Research Articles

The Impact of Math-Gender Stereotypes on Students' Academic Performance: Evidence from China.

This study investigates the impact of math-gender stereotypes on students' academic performance using data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), which surveyed nationally representative middle schools in China. Our sample comprises over 2000 seventh-grade students, with an average age of 13 and a standard deviation of 0.711. Among these students, 52.4% are male, and 47.6% are female. Employing a fixed effects model and instrumental variable, our findings are as follows. First, over half of the male students believe that boys are better at math than girls, and they also perceive that their parents and society hold the same belief. In contrast, fewer than half of the female students hold this belief or perception. Intriguingly, among these students, female math performance surpasses that of males. Second, stereotypes hinder female math performance, especially among low-achieving ones, while benefiting high-achieving male students. Finally, perceptions of societal stereotypes have the greatest effect on math performance, followed by self-stereotypes and perceptions of parental stereotypes. Understanding the implications of these findings highlights the importance of addressing math-gender stereotypes to promote equal participation and success for both genders in STEM fields.

How emotions are related to competence beliefs during mathematical problem solving: Differences between boys and girls

This study, grounded in Control Value Theory, aimed at increasing insight into how the emotions of enjoyment and anxiety shape students' situated math competence beliefs. Additionally, we investigated gender differences in these effects. An online survey including mathematical problems with corresponding competence belief ratings, and questionnaires regarding math-related emotions was filled out by 866 ninth-grade students. Ordinal mixed effects modelling revealed that after correcting for actual performance, emotions contributed (modestly) to students' competence beliefs: enjoyment was positively related to competence and anxiety had a negative relation. The strength of these relations was not affected by gender, but boys did report higher situated math competence beliefs than girls, despite a lack of gender difference in actual performance. Boys also showed higher math enjoyment and lower anxiety than girls. Our findings underline the need for interventions that improve girls' attitude towards mathematics and refute the math gender stereotype. Educational relevance and implications statementIn this study we investigated factors related to ninth-grade students' situated competence beliefs in math. We found that first and foremost actual performance predicted competence beliefs, showing students' metacognitive abilities. But we also found that the emotions of math enjoyment and math anxiety affected these beliefs, and that boys held higher competence beliefs than girls, while their math performance did not differ. This suggests that a situated intervention, aimed at showing girls at the item level how often their answers are correct and stimulating them to hold positive beliefs could boost their confidence in their STEM abilities, and possibly enhance their motivation to pursue a STEM career.

“Who’s Better at Math, Boys or Girls?”: Changes in Adolescents’ Math Gender Stereotypes and Their Motivational Beliefs from Early to Late Adolescence

Though adults tend to endorse the stereotype that boys are better than girls in math, children tend to favor their own gender or be gender egalitarian. When do individuals start endorsing the traditional stereotype that boys are better? Using two longitudinal U.S. datasets that span 1993 to 2011, we examined three questions: (1) What are the developmental changes in adolescents’ gender stereotypes about math abilities from early to late adolescence? (2) Do the developmental changes vary based on gender and race/ethnicity? (3) Are adolescents’ stereotypes related to their math motivational beliefs? Finally, (4) do these patterns replicate across two datasets that vary in historical time? Adolescents in grades 8/9 and 11 were asked whether girls or boys are better at math (n’s = 1186 and 23,340, 49–53% girls, 30–54% White, 13–60% Black, 1–22% Latinx, and 2% to 4% Asian). Early adolescents were more likely to be gender egalitarian or favor their own gender. By late adolescence, adolescents’ stereotypes typically shifted towards the traditional stereotype that boys are better. In terms of race/ethnicity, White and Asian adolescents significantly favored boys, whereas Black and Latinx adolescents were more likely to endorse gender egalitarian beliefs. Adolescents’ stereotypes were significantly related to their expectancy beliefs, negatively for girls and positively for boys.

Gender Difference Influence Students’ Performance in Learning Math in Secondary Schools

As mathematics has been viewed for decades as a strereotyped male domain, gender differences in mathematics learning have received strong attention from scholars. This study, therefore, investigates the influences of gender differences on students’ performance in learning math in secondary school context. The study used a synthesis research. This method of research is undertaken by synthesizing any relevant studies in order to draw conclusion. Some empirical studies investigating the issues of gender difference and learning match were carefully analyzed and synthesized to draw the links between gender differences and secondary students’ academic achievements in learning math. The findings show that male students outperform female students in mathematics learning for three reasons. First, social gender stereotypes about students’ math ability may lead students to endorse math-gender stereotype themselves. This kind of stereotype makes male students more confident whereas female students become more anxious. Second, personality and spatial ability, as representors in mentality, have commonly been proven that another reason for the advantage of male students in mathematics education. The last is physical advantages in which current evidences suggest that males are more active in some brain areas which are related to mathematics ability. This essay highly recommends future research focus on physical reasons of gender difference in mathematics learning.

Growth Mindset Training and the Effect of Math-Gender Stereotype Threat on Girl Students

To investigate whether growth mindset training can weaken the effect of math-gender stereotype threat on girl students, this study undertook experimental intervention in a group of grade-11 girl students and found that: (i) Mindsets can moderate the effect of math-gender stereotype threat. Girls with a growth mindset are less likely to be affected by math-gender stereotype threat compared with those with a fixed mindset. (ii) Growth mindset training for girls with a fixed mindset can effectively reduce the effect of math-gender stereotype threat on their math performance.

Parents’ Math Gender Stereotypes and Their Correlates: An Examination of the Similarities and Differences Over the Past 25 Years

Parents’ Math Gender Stereotypes and Their Correlates: An Examination of the Similarities and Differences Over the Past 25 Years

Harm not only females: math-gender stereotypes and engagement of engineering students at Russian universities

ABSTRACT This paper explores the associations between math-gender stereotypes and two dimensions of student engagement – class engagement and disengagement – among Russian engineering students. The data collected in three Russian universities (n = 2,074) were utilised. Structural equation modelling was employed to test hypotheses about relationships between key variables and their variations for male and female subsamples. We revealed that the students’ attribution of math-gender stereotypes to faculty slightly decreased class engagement and increased disengagement for both male and female students. Therefore, we hypothesise that male students can be more overconfident about their future performance in exams on math-related subjects because of a better reputation in the eyes of instructors, which can result in less engagement and, as a consequence, lower academic outcomes. These findings demonstrate the high importance of faculty in encouraging engineering student engagement and providing a bias-free learning environment.

Exposure to stereotype-relevant stories shapes children's implicit gender stereotypes.

Implicit math = male stereotypes have been found in early childhood and are linked to girls' disproportionate disengagement from math-related activities and later careers. Yet, little is known about how malleable children's automatic stereotypes are, especially in response to brief interventions. In a sample of 336 six- to eleven-year-olds, we experimentally tested whether exposure to a brief story vignette intervention with either stereotypical, neutral, or counter-stereotypical content (three conditions: math = boy vs. neutral vs. math = girl) could change implicit math-gender stereotypes. Results suggested that children's implicit math = male stereotypes were indeed responsive to brief stories that either reinforced or countered the widespread math = male stereotype. Children exposed to the counter-stereotypical stories showed significantly lower (and non-significant) stereotypes compared to children exposed to the stereotypical stories. Critically, exposure to stories that perpetuated math = male stereotypes significantly increased math-gender stereotypes over and above baseline, underscoring that implicit gender biases that are readily formed during this period in childhood and even brief exposure to stereotypical content can strengthen them. As a secondary question, we also examined whether changes in stereotypes might also lead to changes in implicit math self-concept. Evidence for effects on implicit self-concept were not statistically significant.

Exploring the Nature of Teachers' Math-Gender Stereotypes: The Math-Gender Misconception Questionnaire.

Stereotypes of girls having weaker mathematical abilities than boys (math-gender stereotypes) are one factor reducing women’s representation in mathematics. Teachers, as powerful socializers, often hold math-gender stereotypes. Reducing math-gender stereotypes in (student) teachers thus may foster women’s representation in mathematics. Yet knowing the stereotypes’ underlying assumptions is crucial to reducing it. Do math-gender stereotypes reflect elaborate, disproven theories about gender differences in math, meaning math-gender misconceptions? And if so, which math-gender misconceptions are behind math-gender stereotypes? This is the focus of the present research. The relevant literature implies the existence of three distinct misconceptions: (1) empathizing-systemizing (“As girls think rather empathically and boys think rather systematically, boys are on average more talented in math than girls”), (2) girls’ compensation (“To achieve equally good grades in mathematics, boys have to make less effort because they are more talented than girls are”), and (3) girls’ non-compensability (“Despite their on average stronger effort, girls are normally less proficient in math than boys”). We assessed these misconceptions in a student teacher sample (N = 303) using our newly developed Math-Gender Misconceptions Questionnaire. Our results offer support for the expected three-factor structure of math-gender misconceptions. All three math-gender misconceptions showed good to acceptable scale reliabilities. On average, preservice teachers did not hold (strong) math-gender misconceptions. But a subgroup of 48.2% of preservice teachers held at least one of the three misconceptions. The empathizing-systemizing misconception was the most prevalent (32.0%) among the three misconceptions. Descriptively, endorsing the math-gender stereotype correlated most strongly with the empathizing-systemizing (r = 0.43) and the girls’ compensation misconception (r = 0.44). This may indicate that especially these two misconceptions partly underlie math-gender stereotypes. As a consequence, refutation instructions designed to reduce these misconceptions may be a promising method to weaken math-gender stereotypes. Further research is needed to investigate to what degree reducing the present misconceptions is related to reducing math-gender stereotypes. Hence, this study is the first one of a planned series of studies on the relation between math-gender misconceptions and math-gender stereotypes.

Assessing Implicit and Explicit Math-gender Stereotypes in Chinese adults

The questionnaires and Implicit Association Test were used to investigate the explicit and implicit Math-gender stereotypes of Chinese college students, which refers to the implicit notion that men are better at mathematics than women and women are better at reading than men. It was found that there was no explicit Math-gender stereotype overall, but there was clearly an implicit Math-gender stereotype.

Development of children’s math attitudes: Gender differences, key socializers, and intervention approaches

The relation of various math attitudes to math achievement has been extensively studied in adolescents and adults. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the math attitude-math achievement relation in young children. We review theories and research on four attitudes relevant to early math learning—math anxiety, math self-concept, mindset, and math-gender stereotype. These attitudes emerge and are related to math achievement by early elementary school. Our review suggests that early math achievement plays an important role in the initial development of either positive or negative math attitudes, which in turn, may initiate a vicious or virtuous cycle that can enhance or undermine math learning. Additionally, gender differences in math attitudes (favoring boys) emerge by early to mid-elementary school. An important future direction involves understanding how early attitudes about math relate to each other, and whether certain constellations of attitudes are prevalent. We also consider three types of math attitudes that key socializers—parents and teachers—hold: general (math-gender stereotypes and mindsets), self-relevant (math anxiety), and child-specific (expectations and value of math for their child or student). Our review highlights a link between key socializers’ math attitudes and associated behaviors, and their children’s math attitudes and math achievement. Based on these findings, we propose the Early Math Achievement-Attitude model (EMAA). An important future direction involves increasing our understanding of how key socializers with different math attitude constellations engage with children around math. Finally, based on our review of these topics as well as intervention studies, we discuss intervention approaches that hold promise for improving young children’s math achievement and math attitudes.

Science and Math Interest and Gender Stereotypes: The Role of Educator Gender in Informal Science Learning Sites.

Interest in science and math plays an important role in encouraging STEM motivation and career aspirations. This interest decreases for girls between late childhood and adolescence. Relatedly, positive mentoring experiences with female teachers can protect girls against losing interest. The present study examines whether visitors to informal science learning sites (ISLS; science centers, zoos, and aquariums) differ in their expressed science and math interest, as well as their science and math stereotypes following an interaction with either a male or female educator. Participants (n = 364; early childhood, n = 151, Mage = 6.73; late childhood, n = 136, Mage = 10.01; adolescence, n = 59, Mage = 13.92) were visitors to one of four ISLS in the United States and United Kingdom. Following an interaction with a male or female educator, they reported their math and science interest and responded to math and science gender stereotype measures. Female participants reported greater interest in math following an interaction with a female educator, compared to when they interacted with a male educator. In turn, female participants who interacted with a female educator were less likely to report male-biased math gender stereotypes. Self-reported science interest did not differ as a function of educator gender. Together these findings suggest that, when aiming to encourage STEM interest and challenge gender stereotypes in informal settings, we must consider the importance of the gender of educators and learners.

The influence of male faces on stereotype activation among women in STEM: An ERP investigation

Members of stereotyped groups are vigilant to situational cues signaling threats to their social identity. In one psychophysiological experiment, we examined whether mere exposure to a watching male face would increase attentional vigilance among female STEM students due to the activation of math-gender stereotypes. Male and female students performed an alleged math intelligence task while being primed with male faces or control images. Automatic responses to errors were captured with error-related negativity (ERN), a neural index of error vigilance. Women showed larger ERN upon making errors when primed with male faces compared to control images, whereas no such priming effect occurred among men. Moreover, this face priming effect was pronounced only among women highly invested in pursuing STEM careers. These findings suggest that minimalistic social cues may activate negative stereotypes early in informational processing, thereby selectively shunting attention on errors in stereotype-relevant tasks among individuals invested in the performance domain.

Early Sources of Children’s Math Achievement in Chile: The Role of Parental Beliefs and Feelings about Math

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Two hundred and sixty-seven Chilean children from grades 1–3, their fathers and their mothers completed measures of implicit and explicit math-related beliefs (math–gender stereotypes, math self-concepts) and feelings (math anxiety), as well as tests of mathematical achievement. Children, fathers, and mothers exhibited stereotypes that link math with males. More specifically, mothers identified more with language than with math, while fathers and children identified more with math than with language. Path analyses models revealed that children’s explicit math self-concepts significantly predicted their actual math achievement. Children’s explicit self-concept was, in turn, explained marginally by the mathematical anxiety of their mothers. Practice or Policy: These results contribute to our understanding of the relation between parental and children’s beliefs and children’s math achievement during early elementary school years. In countries such as Chile, with a significant gender gap in math achievement, these findings may highlight relevant aspects to consider when designing interventions aimed at educational equity and providing equal mathematical learning opportunities to boys and girls.

Gender bias and stereotypes in Australian, Singaporean and Turkish mathematics textbooks

This cross-national study aimed to examine gender bias and stereotypes in Australian, Singaporean and Turkish elementary mathematics textbooks. Content analysis approach was used to provide descriptive statistics about the number of male/female and gender-neutral characters in the textbooks. Findings indicated that total frequencies in textbook contents including no gender bias was under nine percent in all textbooks. No gender bias was more prevalent across the grade levels in Australian textbooks. Singaporean mathematics textbooks had more discrepancy between the percentages of boys’ and girls’ representations than the representations in Turkish and Australian textbooks. In terms of math-gender stereotypes, all textbooks across grade levels were generally neutral. Social roles in mathematics textbooks across the countries had more variation for men than women with higher frequencies in all countries. The masculine roles were commonly attributed to men with more technical and intellectual tendency while domestic roles were ascribed to females.

Expected and unexpected effects of sexism on women’s mathematics performance

Research has shown that gender differences in Math performance are partially predicted by sociocultural aspects such as sexist ideologies and stereotypes. This study examined sexist ideologies as predictors of women´s achievement in standardized Math tests, and the mediation role of Math-gender stereotypes and Math self- efficacy, while controlling for abstract reasoning, among high-school girls (H.S.), and university women majoring Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), and in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Among H.S. girls, data showed the expected indirect effect of Math gender stereotypes on Math achievement via Math self-efficacy. Among university students, model adjustment was less optimal. An unexpected positive relationship between hostile sexism and Math performance in STEM fields emerged. Out data suggest several mechanisms by which ideologies and gender stereotypes affect women´s Math performance.

Implicit math-gender stereotype present in adults but not in 8th grade

IntroductionTraditional math-gender stereotypes suggest that boys/men are more likely to enjoy and succeed in mathematics while girls/women are more likely to enjoy and succeed at language arts subjects. The usefulness of implicit measures of math-gender stereotypes has been a subject of investigation in mainly the adult research literature. This is problematic, as adults have typically already made many important decisions about their academic and professional futures, thus making it unclear as to whether implicit attitudes about mathematics causally influence men and women's participation in STEM. Therefore, it is important to assess if the same kind of implicit and explicit stereotypes are found among adolescents who have yet to make many of these decisions. MethodsA total of 196 eighth-grade students and 80 adults participated in this study. Participants completed both implicit and explicit self-report measures of math-gender stereotype attitudes, in addition to measures of math self-concept, verbal self-concept, as well as mathematical performance.Results/conclusions: We found that adolescent boys and girls reported either in-group favouritism or egalitarian attitudes towards math and language subjects. Adult participants reported more typical math-gender stereotypes on self-report measures. Adults also demonstrated a correlation between explicit and implicit measures of math-gender stereotype, which was not the case for adolescents. Implicit math-gender stereotype measures were not a reliable predictor of any other math-related variables among adults or adolescents. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the potential usefulness of implicit measures of math-gender stereotypes for adolescents.

Chilean kindergarten children's beliefs about mathematics: Family matters.

This study examines the relations among parental beliefs and practices about mathematics, children's beliefs about mathematics, participants' gender, and family socioeconomic status (SES). The study was conducted in Chile, a country with significant gender gaps in standardized test results in mathematics, with boys receiving significantly higher scores than girls. One hundred eighty Chilean kindergarteners (Mage = 5.6 years) of low and high SES completed both implicit and explicit measures of their beliefs about mathematics. Children's mothers and fathers also completed adult versions of these tests, as well as measures of home numeracy practices. This combination of child and parental assessments (both mother and father), including both implicit and explicit measures, provided a wider range of measures than in previous studies. On implicit measures of math-gender stereotypes, boys showed the math = boy stereotype significantly more strongly than girls did. Both fathers and mothers showed this stereotype on both implicit and explicit measures. Fathers also linked me = math (math self-concept) more strongly than mothers on both implicit and explicit measures. Kindergarten girls' implicit math self-concept was explained by a combination of parents' math self-concepts and SES. Taken together, these results show that by 5 years of age children are already developing beliefs about "who does math" in their culture, and that parental beliefs and practices are significantly linked to children's stereotypes and self-concepts about mathematics before they enter formal schooling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Detecting Group Gender Stereotypes: Opinion Mining vs. Incentivized Coordination Games

Individuals often make decisions based on perceived social norms and widely-held stereotypes. It is often difficult to elicit such beliefs, since subjects commonly give inaccurate or “politically correct” responses to subjective, sensitive topics. This paper compares two methodological procedures meant to identify group beliefs. In an experimental setting, I pair a flat-rate, opinion-mining scheme with an incentivized coordination game and compare their effectiveness in identifying the well-documented Math-Gender stereotype. Following a simple math task prime, those in the baseline overwhelmingly stated they individually believed neither sex is inherently more proficient at mathematics, while 72% of those in the incentivized treatment said that they believed “males are more proficient” would be the modal response. Gender nor age drives this focal outcome, however, political orientation appears to influence the perception of the stereotype. These results both document the usefulness of an incentivized coordination game as a research tool and demonstrate how stereotypes persist exist independent of whether or not they are individually held or stated.

Math-gender stereotypes and career intentions: an application of expectancy–value theory

ABSTRACTExposure to negative math-gender stereotypes undermines the intentions of female college students to engage in careers in the math field, yet the mechanisms by which such stereotypes relate to girls’ career intentions remain unclear. We simultaneously tested multiple mediators in a sample of 186 female students from one high school in central China. Participants completed five questionnaires that measured mathematics-related gender stereotypes, competence beliefs, task value, sexual attraction beliefs and career intentions. The path analysis results indicated that math-gender stereotypes were negatively related to adolescent girls’ career intentions in math fields through negative relationships with students’ mathematics-related competence beliefs, task value and sexual attraction beliefs. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and educational practice.