Research also shows that, compared with other college students, future elementary teachers are especially prone to math anxiety —apprehension about doing math t

Research also shows that, compared with other college students, future elementary teachers are especially prone to math anxiety —apprehension about doing math that’s so severe it interferes with actually doing it. That anxiety remains once they are in classrooms, and studies show that students learn less math from a math-anxious teacher. Reading this paragraph gives me a strong hunch that it could be gender related. I'm wondering what the gender skew is like in elementary school teaching, similar to nursing ? While research hasn't shown any difference in STEM ability between genders, it most definitely has when it comes to intrinsic interest (and I know this is controversial, but contrary to what is commonly said it's not because of some evil patriarchal plan to keep girls out : gender-related "things vs people" affinity has been found in baby monkeys too, and seems correlated to pre-natal testosterone exposure !) One can easily imagine a bunch of people-orientated young female students going into this field for the kids and people interaction not being too thrilled with the topic.