- Share This Post
- submit
- 11
-
Sparkle (0)
If there is one thing at which I really, really suck, it's math. Sure, I can balance my checkbook and even do some pre-algebra, but what little math I learned in school has largely gone poof! from my brain. Although my math failings embarrass me, I don't care about them much these days--I have established a happily math-free career--but I do worry about the math and science education of today's girls and young women in the U.S. I have plenty of reasons for apprehension.
Writing in the New York Times, Sara Rimer cites a study (PDF) by Titu Andreescu, Joseph A. Gallian, Jonathan M. Kane, and Janet E. Mertz that suggests legions of girls who have a natural aptitude for math are going unindentifed. From the study:
While the USA has been producing many more women mathematicians in recent years, they remain poorly represented among tenured professors at the very top-ranked USA research universities and people identified as profoundly gifted in the field. This article presents for the first time a comprehensive compilation of data, including cross-cultural comparisons, regarding young people identified during the past twenty years as possessing profound aptitude for mathematics based upon their performances in extremely difficult examinations in mathematical problem solving. We show that many girls exist who possess such extremely high aptitude for mathematics. The frequency with which they are identified is due, at least in part, to a variety of socio-cultural, educational, or other environmental factors that differ significantly among countries and ethnic groups and can change over time. Girls were found to be 12%-24% of the children identified as having profound mathematical ability when raised under some conditions; under others, they were 30-fold or more underrepresented. Thus, we conclude that girls with exceptional mathematical talent exist; their identification and nurturing should be substantially improved so this pool of exceptional talent is not wasted.
The obstacles to girls' achievement in math and science are multiple. There is a reason, after all, that the path to a career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields is often referred to as a "leaky pipeline." Girls and women (as well as boys and men from other groups underrepresented in the sciences) fall out of this pipeline at a number of points, but most notably in middle and high school, where math is perceived as a nerd's pursuit; in college and grad school, where institutional and disciplinary cultures may further discourage women's participation in these fields; and during the search for a tenure-track job, when women may be filtered out at the application stage or fail to prosper once they have secured a tenure-track position (but not tenure).
Earlier this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Mary Ann Mason asked the question, "Do Babies Matter in Science?" Of particular concern to Mason are institutions and disciplinary practices that are unfriendly to family life:
Discrimination against job candidates who are pregnant or have children is a very real part of gender discrimination. Some scientists may believe that women who have families cannot be serious scientists because academic science demands exclusive attention to research. But they do not hold the same beliefs about male scientists with kids. In fact, research shows that male scientists are far more likely to have children than female scientists; two years after their Ph.D.'s, nearly 50 percent of men, but only 30 percent of women, had children.
It's a vicious cycle: U.S. girls lack the encouragement necessary to succeed in math and science. A few girls find the confidence and mentoring they need, and seek careers in science or math. But they don't persist in these careers--particularly in higher education--because of family-unfriendly policies. The result? We either have women mathematicians and scientists who would be in an excellent position to raise girls to be more confident in science, but who don't have children, or we have women who do have children--but whose children see their mothers failing to thrive in STEM fields because of cultural biases against women and mothers. And then those girls become disinterested in STEM.
Lovely.
Not surprisingly, the blogosphere has plenty to say on the subject of girls in STEM.
Kathy Ceceri brings us a critique of the New York Times article from a mother, Mary O’Keeffe, whose daughter, Alison Miller, was featured in the story. Says O'Keeffe:
The article misses so much of what was most important about the Math Olympiad experience, which is the sense of belonging to a
