Who knew that researchers now have a name for girls not feeling confident about math skills? This is referred to as “stereotype threat,” which suggests that females underperform on mathematical and intellectual tests in part because of a concern that their performance might confirm negative stereotypes about their group. This translates to, girls under-perform on math tests because they have been told all their lives that they are not as good as boys when it comes to math. Studies show that if girls are simply informed that they are reacting not to reality, but simply to a stereotype about girls and math, then their math scores will go up automatically. Apparently, expectation has a lot to do with performance.
I know about this. I was fine in math until “New Math” was introduced in 5th grade. I had no idea what I was learning and I suspect my teacher was not so sure what she was teaching either. The gist: I went from being a decent math student to one who was suddenly convinced that I was terrible at math. I have carried that bunch of bunk around with me for most of my life, even though I made 99% in a College Algebra class once I stumbled upon a teacher who made everything seem easy. She was an unpretentious country girl who was crystal clear in her explanations. I remember scratching my head and wondering how I could have ever thought that stuff was hard.
The research shows that girls simply need an explanation about this “stereotype threat” and also a bit of encouragement and positive role modeling. If they have that, then they quickly experience a paradigm shift, perform better in math class, and eventually are more open to pursuing careers in math and science.
I’m glad to hear that we are moving away from the idea that women just don’t have a head for numbers. That is just dumb. All the recent brain research suggests that the brain has a plasticity that gives us all the capacity to learn all sorts of new information at any age.
Hurray for that.
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