Gender Differences in Mathematics Essay

Through emerge the first one-half of the 20th century and into the second, wo men studying or functional in technology were popularly perceived as oddities at best, outcasts at worst, defying traditional gender norms. Female engineers created systems of social, psychological, and financial mutual post, through and through such strategies, conditions for female engineers changed noticeably over just a few decades, although many challenges remain. Engineering education in the United States has had a gendered history, iodine that until relatively recently prevented women from finding a place in the predominantly male technical world.For decades, Ameri sesss treated the professional study of technology as mens territory. At places where engineerings macho ending had become or so ingrained, talk of women engineers seemed ridiculous (Sax, 2005). For years its been fake that daughterish women avoid cargoners in mathematics- base field, like engineering and physics, because they lack impudence in their math skills. But a new study finds that its not a lack of confidence in their math skills that drives girls from those fields its a desire to wee-wee in people-oriented professions.It has been rig that young women who are strong in math tend to seek careers in the biological sciences. They value working with and for people, they dont perceive engineering as a profession that meets that need. The environment at many tech teachs is hostile toward helping students achieve a degree and is more(prenominal) pitch toward weeding out those who are struggling. Its difficult to come up with preference engineering solutions if anybody in the room looks alike.Thats the initial reason wherefore automakers and suppliers are busy trying to identify and hire minority and women engineers. The contrast case is that if more than half of an automakers customers are every female and/or people of color, which they are, then those groups need to be correspond in every se ctor of the company. One of the most important areas for automakers to strike a range of views is in product development. With that diversity mission in mind, DaimlerChrysler Corp. , Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., all let mounted assertive programs to identify and hire minority and women engineers. At GM the story is the same. To perpetrate minority and women engineers, the automaker proclaims that innovation comes from the people who see the world in a disagreeent way than everyone else. One women and minorities enter into the self-propelling engineering ranks, they need to be challenged and encouraged to develop their careers or theyll be kaput(p) (Sax, 2005). Its not just the Big Three that are working to create a more diverse engineering workforce.Suppliers and engineering support organizations such as the Society of Automotive Engineers are trying to draw poker more women and minorities into the profession. Faced with chronically small percentages of minorities and women in virtually every segment of engineering, companies are going to great lengths to attract them to the world of automotive engineering. Harvard President Lawrence Summers ignited a firestorm recently when he suggested more men than women are scientists because of differences between males and females in intrinsic aptitude. Many scientists-both men and women-expressed disgust at Summers remarks and blamed any lag in math among girls mainly on discrimination and socialization (Dean, 2006). They point out that girls have closed the gap in average bills on most standardized math tests in elementary and high school. today women constitute almost half of college math majors and more than half of biology majors. But Summers supporters say he courageously raised a legitimate question for scientific inquiry.Indeed, in recent years some researchers have been pursuing a scientific accounting for the discrepancies in math and science aptitude and operation among boys and girls a nd have set up differences, including biological ones. Summers suggestion that women are biologically small in math infuriated many female scientists. Some asseverate that the other two factors he mentioned were far more important in keeping women out of science sex discrimination and the way girls are taught to view math as male territory.Some differences are tumefy established. Girls do go on tests of content learned in phratry and score much higher on reading and writing tests than boys. Boys score higher on standardized tests with math and science problems not at one time tied to their school curriculum. On tests of spatial awareness, boys do better on tests that involve navigation through space. Girls are better at store objects and landmarks. Studies show differences in brain structure and hormonal levels that appear to define spatial reasoning.But the implications of these differences for real world math and science achievement remain unclear. There is endorse that male and female brains differ anatomically is subtle ways, but no one knows how these anatomical differences relate to cognitive performance, (Dean, 2006). At the heart of the current controversy is a societal implication-that the disappointment of an institution like Harvard to tenure even one woman mathematician can be blamed on the lack of purloin-flight women mathematicians, which in process can be blamed on too-few top female minds in math.As evidence of intrinsic aptitude differences, Summers pointed out that more boys than girls put one across top scores on standardized math tests. Today girls capture better grades than boys in math and science through high school, have closed the gap on average scores on most standardized math tests and take more advantage high school classes than boys in almost every category except physics and upper-level calculus. In college they constitute nearly half the math majors and more than half the biology majors.Indeed, today a growing num ber of researchers treat boys are the ones who are shortchanged-judging by the larger correspondence of boys in special-education classes and the declining proportion attending college. Women now make up 56 percent of students enrolled in college by 2012, the Department of Education projects they will account for a strife 60 percent of bachelors degrees (2002). The fact that more boys than girls make top scores on standardized math tests is often invoked as evidence that boys possess an innate superiority in high-level math.Experts on both sides of the divide agree gender differences are real, even if they disagree bout how much is socially learned and how much biologically based. Girls do better on writing and on algebra problems, probably because algebraic equations are mistakable to sentences, and girls excel in language processing. Boys are better at numerical word problems girls are better at mathematical calculation. Boys and girls withal differ on spatial skills, and expe rts are divided over how innate or important these differences are.A recent study of the Graduate Record Exam, for instance, found men did better on math problems where a spatially based solution was an advantage (Gallagher, & Kaufman, 2005). Sex hormones have been shown in several studies to hit the ability to envision an object rotating in space. Females who take male hormones to swot for a sex-change operation improve on tests of 3-D rotation and line up worse on tests of verbal fluency, at which women typically excel.During their menstrual cycle, women do better on 3-D rotation when levels of the female hormone oestrogen are low they do better on verbal fluency when estrogen levels are high. If science be taught directly with a hands-on, inquiry-based approach, it sustains girls interest in science. Girls like to work in accommodating teams, a lot of science was taught in a competitive mode. Women scientists also earn less than men. But its only fair that women who work fewe r hours face the economic consequences of lower salaries and less status. References Dean, Cornelia. (2006).Dismissing Sexist Opinions some Womens Place in Science. A Conversation with Ben A. Barres. The radical York Times. July 18, 2006, pp. 1-5. Gallagher, Ann M. , & Kaufman, James M. (2005). Gender Differences in Mathematics An Integrative Psychological Approach. Cambridge University Press. issue Center for Education Statistics, Projections of Education Statistics To 2012. (2002). Available on-line http//nces. ed. gov/pubs2002/proj. 2012/ch_2. asp.. Sax, Leonard. (2005). Too a few(prenominal) Women- Figure It Out. Los Angeles Times. Jan. 23, 2005.