

Gender Inequality and the Math Gap - mechanical_fish
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-why-judy-cant-add-gender-inequality-and-the-math-gap.html

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blurry
All I know is, where I grew up, girls usually scored higher than boys on math
tests, and of course that was also attributed to physical/gender
differences... girls having a "natural" interest in studying and boys having a
"natural" interest in running around and being boys. Everything always gets
blamed on gender differences but the truth is, we simply don't know what those
differences are (as opposed to culture/individual upbringing), so we justify
our own prejudices with "science".

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riahi
If we are playing the anecdote game, in my high school, girls did best in math
class (straightforward math problems--evaluate this integral), but boys did
the best in math team (more creative and applied questions).

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aggieben
_The study, however, leaves us with yet another question of this sort: why do
boys appear to read so poorly? We clearly can't ascribe it to social
inequality, but that doesn't mean it isn't due to some other social factor._

This is just stupid. The study (or any other I've ever seen) as described
offers no such clarity. My reaction to any such study that offers such grand
social pronouncements is extreme skepticism.

For once, I'd like to read an article about a study that only concludes what
the statistics in the study will actually support, and nothing more.

