7 ms·

How Elementary School Teachers Biases Can Discourage Girls from Math and Science

42 points by zorpner 12y ago

zorpner 12y ago
Apologies if there's a paywall -- you should be able to Google the URL and get it from there. Relevant pull quote: In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. The effect was not the same for tests on other subjects... And the original paper if you have access to NBER: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909 http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909
- ashark 12y ago
  Until I read the article I was having a hard time reconciling the headline (elementary school teachers) with your post, since I don't recall many elementary school math tests featuring questions where partial credit was possible, but the study actually covers grade 6 through high school, which makes way more sense. Since I can't see the paper: did they type these up, or maybe have one person re-write all of the papers going to both graders? Maybe things are different in Israel (where the study was conducted) but handwriting would have given a stranger at least an 80% chance of correctly guessing the sex of the test-taker in the schools I attended.
breckinloggins 12y ago
In my opinion, this is the heart of the diversity problem. We spend a lot of time trying to improve the representation of adult women in tech. Wouldn't that be a whole lot easier if girls felt more comfortable growing up to become women in tech? I'm certain it's not just girls vs boys, either. I'm convinced adults are consciously and unconsciously acting as a giant sorting hat and shuffling children into preconceived interests, activities, and careers based not just on gender, but on ALL those things we like to hope don't matter but stubbornly persist in mattering: gender, race, ethnicity, wealth of parents, religious preference of parents, attractiveness, height, voice tonality, presupposed future sexual orientation, and on and on. We do have a really cool experiment that just started this year, though: a mandatory computer science curriculum in Britain[1]. It'll be a lot harder to convince impressionable kids that they are no good at computers (because they "don't look like it") when everyone is learning it from kindergarten on. It's unfortunate that we'll have to wait another 10 - 15 years to see what effect that will have, though. [1] http://pando.com/2014/02/10/by-next-year-coding-will-be-mandatory-in-british-schools-what-the-hell-america/ http://pando.com/2014/02/10/by-next-year-coding-will-be-mand...
- njohnson41 12y ago
  Hopefully mandatory computer science education doesn't fall into the same trap as mathematics, where the "introductory" version taught in grade school becomes so simplified and rote that it loses all of the qualities that make it creative and interesting. There is definitely a systemic problem of kids thinking they are "no good at math", despite an early introduction, and I'm not sure why CS would be so different. Of course, that's still a lot better than not having mandatory math classes at all.
  - derefr 12y ago
    Indeed; what I'd really hope for, in the end, would be just beginning to teach discrete math (logic, set theory, graph theory, etc.) to kids starting when they're 11 or so. It's a lot easier, and a lot more fun, and tends to be a lot more appreciated by the kids than the random bits of pre-calculus (literally "things that are useless unless you later take calculus") we teach them in "Math" class! But, of course, everyone always derides the idea because "we tried this" with New Math in the 70s. No, we didn't. We tried to teach some parts of discrete math (which are formal abstractions) to 5- or 6-year-olds, who weren't yet at the formal operational stage of cognitive development. You can't teach a 6-year-old about set theory any more than you can teach a 6-week-old about object permanence. You have to start when they're older. But "older" doesn't mean "an optional thing to be taught at university!" It's a formative skill, and if you don't pick it up right when you're first able to pick it up, trying to force it into your mind later is somewhat like trying to learn a new spoken language in adulthood when you've been monolingual for your entire life until then.
- amyjess 12y ago
  Been lurking for a while, figured this'd be a good place to make my first post. I'm a trans woman (MtF). This isn't the first time (and it won't be the last) I've observed something about gender stereotypes just from having lived on both sides. One stereotype that's widely known in the trans community is that a disproportionately large percentage of trans women work in tech (or are tech hobbyists). The "MtF CS nerd" is probably the biggest trans stereotype I can think of. This stereotype doesn't extend to trans men (FtMs). In fact, it's assumed that the ratio of MtFs to FtMs in tech is about the same as the ratio of cis men to cis women in tech. In the main online trans community I run in, where this stereotype is endlessly touted as being true (often tongue-in-cheek), most of us start our transitions somewhere between 18-45 and by and large is biased towards people who started in our twenties (I started at 28, myself, and I'm 30 now). People who started before or after that are really rare in that particular community (there are other communities that swing younger or older, by the way -- I'm just talking about the group I run with). The only real conclusion is that whatever biased us towards or against careers in tech based on our perceived genders must have occurred in childhood, definitely before college and probably before high school as well. It probably happened in toddlerhood, really. There's an excellent SMBC comic on this, by the way, but I'm new and I don't know if posting a link will get this post tossed into the spam filter. This is why I think putting pressure on companies to recruit more and more adult women is fundamentally flawed. There just aren't enough adult cis women who are interested, no matter how much any company tries to recruit. I'm also particularly appalled by attempts to demonize Linus Torvalds for not having enough women as core kernel developers: it's not his fault that people perceived as female (i.e. cis girls and pre-transition FtMs) are told as early as preschool that they shouldn't be interested in technology. Fix that part of society instead of demonizing project leaders.
brandonmenc 12y ago
> In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. I get that there's such a thing as "partial credit," but seriously? What kind of math are they teaching?
- rayiner 12y ago
  Discrimination is most apparent when someone inevitably does something wrong. Does the teacher take a charitable view of what the kid does understand, and give generous partial credit, or does she write the kid off based on bias? The same thing happens with race. The white guy with an open container versus the black guy doing the same thing--who gets more slack from the cops?
- chrisbrandow 12y ago
  one issue could be the study design. I can't quite tell from the NYT writeup, but it seems that the test graded by the teacher was a different test than the one graded by outside teachers. That could definitely have an impact
  - gwern 12y ago
    Fulltext: http://sci-hub.org/downloads/277d/10.0000@www.nber.org@generic-7242DB741D24.pdf http://sci-hub.org/downloads/277d/10.0000@www.nber.org@gener... Correct, the tests are very different: "We measure teachers’ gender biased behavior by comparing their average marking of boys’ and girls’ in a “non-blind” classroom exam to the respective means in a “blind” national exam marked anonymously. To construct a measure of teachers' biased behavior we combine the scores from the GEMS 5th grade external exam with those of internal exams held in the middle of 6 th grade. The GEMS test scores is a “blind” assessment since the GEMS exams are graded by an independent agency where at no stage are the identity and gender of the student revealed. In contrast, the internal exam is graded by the student’s teacher and therefore it is a “non-blind” assessment. We assume that this measure of teacher’s stereotypes captures her/his overall perception about gender cognitive differences and we use it as a proxy for her/his level of prejudice and discriminatory behavior in class . 15" (The paper is surprisingly quiet about what the "internal exams" actually are.)
dsjoerg 12y ago
To those who can access the paper -- how large was the discovered effect?
FD3SA 12y ago
Interesting how the mainstream media keeps doing circles around these issues. When you start with flawed assumptions, you will never get an accurate solution. The hypothesis that vicious and systemic oppression of females since birth is keeping them out of Computer Science is hardly sound. While there may be an element of discrimination in all professions that tend to be dominated by one sex, I think it's time to look a little more closely at the situation. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. This means that on a genetic and physiological level, our sexes are distinct barring genetic anomalies such as Klinefelter syndrome and other rare conditions. Now as with anything that deals with biology, there is a massive amount of variation within each classification category, i.e. sex. This being said, we can and have done studies measuring the distribution (mean and variation) of tendencies for both sexes to find that they are quite distinct at a physiological level. This means that when comparing the mean male adult brain to the mean female adult brain, the neural architecture is quite distinctly different. This has natural consequences in our behavior, predispositions, illnesses and life outcomes. For example, it is found that the mean male does better on visuospatial tasks than the mean female, whereas females tend to do better on verbal tasks. Now all the usual disclaimers apply about cognitive testing biases and sample populations, but there is a slight empirical difference. This is why in certain Nordic countries which pride themselves on being the most sexually egalitarian, the polarization of traditional careers is at a record high. For example, comparing two equally lucrative professions, on average men tend to study engineering and females tend towards nursing. As these countries have worked tirelessly to eradicate discrimination from their education, social, legal and professional systems, the only variable left to control for is personal preference which tends to gravitate towards sexual averages. In conclusion, I find it often helps to frame a problem from an empirical point of view before assuming the cause and prescribing a treatment a priori. Now, are all the developed countries in the world at the level of the Nordic countries in terms of sexual egalitarianism? Most likely not, though I doubt they're exactly Saudi Arabia either, which some of the more radical pundits tend to vociferously imply publicly at every opportunity. Empirical and rational thought are gifts left to us by our ancestors after thousands of years of toil. I find it disappointing that we constantly fall into these irrational situations simply due to knee-jerk emotional outrage over perceived injustices. I hope one day rationality and empirical thought become the core education platform for mankind.
chrisBob 12y ago
As a guy I find it hard to believe that sexism still exists but then my wife just got back from an interview where someone asked her if "Being a mother will negatively impact her science". Now that I have a daughter I will work hard at home to let her know that she can be whatever she wants, but I feel bad for the kids that can't get that reinforcement at home.
stolio 12y ago
The last time this topic came up, buried in the comments somewhere I found this gem: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm It's controversial, but it has some ideas not usually tossed around in these debates. It certainly brings at least as much to the table as an article suggesting a small study done in Israel explains America's STEM gender differences.
belorn 12y ago
Today I read an article that Swedish politicians are arguing against gender equality in Elementary School. Male elementary teachers not only represent a small 3%, but has extraordinary standards put on them, where people expect them represent the male gender. Additionally, male elementary school teachers are looked at with suspicion, where co-workers wonder if newly employed male teachers are sexual predators or just failures for not picking normal male jobs. Unsurprising, this lead to over 50% of graduates who enter the work force to switch job within the first year. This is the context and environment this NY times article exist in. It should come as no surprise that an environment this toxic to gender equality produces biases.
derefr 12y ago
Just because I'm surprised this link hasn't already been dropped into this discussion: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required...
sporkenfang 12y ago
Anecdotal evidence, but my primary school teacher's refrain was "math is hard!". Not exactly helpful, and it was puzzling to me as a primary schooler since, you know, addition and subtraction aren't so bad. I still remember it because she said it so damned often. If we could reach people like her and make the impression that such attitudes are detrimental to the future of every child she teaches, perhaps more progress could be made.
no1ne 12y ago
this seems very HN worthy ... let's turn this place into shit also -_- ... also im going to leave this here for all those "concerned" people ... http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discriminate-against-boys/ http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discrimi...
- no1ne 12y ago
  I see "triggered" people down-voting ... lel

42 points by zorpner 12y ago

Apologies if there's a paywall -- you should be able to Google the URL and get it from there. Relevant pull quote: In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. The effect was not the same for tests on other subjects... And the original paper if you have access to NBER: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909 http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909

ashark 12y ago
Until I read the article I was having a hard time reconciling the headline (elementary school teachers) with your post, since I don't recall many elementary school math tests featuring questions where partial credit was possible, but the study actually covers grade 6 through high school, which makes way more sense. Since I can't see the paper: did they type these up, or maybe have one person re-write all of the papers going to both graders? Maybe things are different in Israel (where the study was conducted) but handwriting would have given a stranger at least an 80% chance of correctly guessing the sex of the test-taker in the schools I attended.

breckinloggins 12y ago

In my opinion, this is the heart of the diversity problem. We spend a lot of time trying to improve the representation of adult women in tech. Wouldn't that be a whole lot easier if girls felt more comfortable growing up to become women in tech? I'm certain it's not just girls vs boys, either. I'm convinced adults are consciously and unconsciously acting as a giant sorting hat and shuffling children into preconceived interests, activities, and careers based not just on gender, but on ALL those things we like to hope don't matter but stubbornly persist in mattering: gender, race, ethnicity, wealth of parents, religious preference of parents, attractiveness, height, voice tonality, presupposed future sexual orientation, and on and on. We do have a really cool experiment that just started this year, though: a mandatory computer science curriculum in Britain[1]. It'll be a lot harder to convince impressionable kids that they are no good at computers (because they "don't look like it") when everyone is learning it from kindergarten on. It's unfortunate that we'll have to wait another 10 - 15 years to see what effect that will have, though. [1] http://pando.com/2014/02/10/by-next-year-coding-will-be-mandatory-in-british-schools-what-the-hell-america/ http://pando.com/2014/02/10/by-next-year-coding-will-be-mand...

njohnson41 12y ago
Hopefully mandatory computer science education doesn't fall into the same trap as mathematics, where the "introductory" version taught in grade school becomes so simplified and rote that it loses all of the qualities that make it creative and interesting. There is definitely a systemic problem of kids thinking they are "no good at math", despite an early introduction, and I'm not sure why CS would be so different. Of course, that's still a lot better than not having mandatory math classes at all.
- derefr 12y ago
  Indeed; what I'd really hope for, in the end, would be just beginning to teach discrete math (logic, set theory, graph theory, etc.) to kids starting when they're 11 or so. It's a lot easier, and a lot more fun, and tends to be a lot more appreciated by the kids than the random bits of pre-calculus (literally "things that are useless unless you later take calculus") we teach them in "Math" class! But, of course, everyone always derides the idea because "we tried this" with New Math in the 70s. No, we didn't. We tried to teach some parts of discrete math (which are formal abstractions) to 5- or 6-year-olds, who weren't yet at the formal operational stage of cognitive development. You can't teach a 6-year-old about set theory any more than you can teach a 6-week-old about object permanence. You have to start when they're older. But "older" doesn't mean "an optional thing to be taught at university!" It's a formative skill, and if you don't pick it up right when you're first able to pick it up, trying to force it into your mind later is somewhat like trying to learn a new spoken language in adulthood when you've been monolingual for your entire life until then.
amyjess 12y ago
Been lurking for a while, figured this'd be a good place to make my first post. I'm a trans woman (MtF). This isn't the first time (and it won't be the last) I've observed something about gender stereotypes just from having lived on both sides. One stereotype that's widely known in the trans community is that a disproportionately large percentage of trans women work in tech (or are tech hobbyists). The "MtF CS nerd" is probably the biggest trans stereotype I can think of. This stereotype doesn't extend to trans men (FtMs). In fact, it's assumed that the ratio of MtFs to FtMs in tech is about the same as the ratio of cis men to cis women in tech. In the main online trans community I run in, where this stereotype is endlessly touted as being true (often tongue-in-cheek), most of us start our transitions somewhere between 18-45 and by and large is biased towards people who started in our twenties (I started at 28, myself, and I'm 30 now). People who started before or after that are really rare in that particular community (there are other communities that swing younger or older, by the way -- I'm just talking about the group I run with). The only real conclusion is that whatever biased us towards or against careers in tech based on our perceived genders must have occurred in childhood, definitely before college and probably before high school as well. It probably happened in toddlerhood, really. There's an excellent SMBC comic on this, by the way, but I'm new and I don't know if posting a link will get this post tossed into the spam filter. This is why I think putting pressure on companies to recruit more and more adult women is fundamentally flawed. There just aren't enough adult cis women who are interested, no matter how much any company tries to recruit. I'm also particularly appalled by attempts to demonize Linus Torvalds for not having enough women as core kernel developers: it's not his fault that people perceived as female (i.e. cis girls and pre-transition FtMs) are told as early as preschool that they shouldn't be interested in technology. Fix that part of society instead of demonizing project leaders.

brandonmenc 12y ago

> In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names. I get that there's such a thing as "partial credit," but seriously? What kind of math are they teaching?

rayiner 12y ago
Discrimination is most apparent when someone inevitably does something wrong. Does the teacher take a charitable view of what the kid does understand, and give generous partial credit, or does she write the kid off based on bias? The same thing happens with race. The white guy with an open container versus the black guy doing the same thing--who gets more slack from the cops?
chrisbrandow 12y ago
one issue could be the study design. I can't quite tell from the NYT writeup, but it seems that the test graded by the teacher was a different test than the one graded by outside teachers. That could definitely have an impact
- gwern 12y ago
  Fulltext: http://sci-hub.org/downloads/277d/10.0000@www.nber.org@generic-7242DB741D24.pdf http://sci-hub.org/downloads/277d/10.0000@www.nber.org@gener... Correct, the tests are very different: "We measure teachers’ gender biased behavior by comparing their average marking of boys’ and girls’ in a “non-blind” classroom exam to the respective means in a “blind” national exam marked anonymously. To construct a measure of teachers' biased behavior we combine the scores from the GEMS 5th grade external exam with those of internal exams held in the middle of 6 th grade. The GEMS test scores is a “blind” assessment since the GEMS exams are graded by an independent agency where at no stage are the identity and gender of the student revealed. In contrast, the internal exam is graded by the student’s teacher and therefore it is a “non-blind” assessment. We assume that this measure of teacher’s stereotypes captures her/his overall perception about gender cognitive differences and we use it as a proxy for her/his level of prejudice and discriminatory behavior in class . 15" (The paper is surprisingly quiet about what the "internal exams" actually are.)

dsjoerg 12y ago

To those who can access the paper -- how large was the discovered effect?

FD3SA 12y ago

Interesting how the mainstream media keeps doing circles around these issues. When you start with flawed assumptions, you will never get an accurate solution. The hypothesis that vicious and systemic oppression of females since birth is keeping them out of Computer Science is hardly sound. While there may be an element of discrimination in all professions that tend to be dominated by one sex, I think it's time to look a little more closely at the situation. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. This means that on a genetic and physiological level, our sexes are distinct barring genetic anomalies such as Klinefelter syndrome and other rare conditions. Now as with anything that deals with biology, there is a massive amount of variation within each classification category, i.e. sex. This being said, we can and have done studies measuring the distribution (mean and variation) of tendencies for both sexes to find that they are quite distinct at a physiological level. This means that when comparing the mean male adult brain to the mean female adult brain, the neural architecture is quite distinctly different. This has natural consequences in our behavior, predispositions, illnesses and life outcomes. For example, it is found that the mean male does better on visuospatial tasks than the mean female, whereas females tend to do better on verbal tasks. Now all the usual disclaimers apply about cognitive testing biases and sample populations, but there is a slight empirical difference. This is why in certain Nordic countries which pride themselves on being the most sexually egalitarian, the polarization of traditional careers is at a record high. For example, comparing two equally lucrative professions, on average men tend to study engineering and females tend towards nursing. As these countries have worked tirelessly to eradicate discrimination from their education, social, legal and professional systems, the only variable left to control for is personal preference which tends to gravitate towards sexual averages. In conclusion, I find it often helps to frame a problem from an empirical point of view before assuming the cause and prescribing a treatment a priori. Now, are all the developed countries in the world at the level of the Nordic countries in terms of sexual egalitarianism? Most likely not, though I doubt they're exactly Saudi Arabia either, which some of the more radical pundits tend to vociferously imply publicly at every opportunity. Empirical and rational thought are gifts left to us by our ancestors after thousands of years of toil. I find it disappointing that we constantly fall into these irrational situations simply due to knee-jerk emotional outrage over perceived injustices. I hope one day rationality and empirical thought become the core education platform for mankind.

chrisBob 12y ago

As a guy I find it hard to believe that sexism still exists but then my wife just got back from an interview where someone asked her if "Being a mother will negatively impact her science". Now that I have a daughter I will work hard at home to let her know that she can be whatever she wants, but I feel bad for the kids that can't get that reinforcement at home.

stolio 12y ago

The last time this topic came up, buried in the comments somewhere I found this gem: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm It's controversial, but it has some ideas not usually tossed around in these debates. It certainly brings at least as much to the table as an article suggesting a small study done in Israel explains America's STEM gender differences.

belorn 12y ago

Today I read an article that Swedish politicians are arguing against gender equality in Elementary School. Male elementary teachers not only represent a small 3%, but has extraordinary standards put on them, where people expect them represent the male gender. Additionally, male elementary school teachers are looked at with suspicion, where co-workers wonder if newly employed male teachers are sexual predators or just failures for not picking normal male jobs. Unsurprising, this lead to over 50% of graduates who enter the work force to switch job within the first year. This is the context and environment this NY times article exist in. It should come as no surprise that an environment this toxic to gender equality produces biases.

derefr 12y ago

Just because I'm surprised this link hasn't already been dropped into this discussion: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required-ability-act-as-a-proxy-for-actual-required-ability-in-explaining-the-gender-gap/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/24/perceptions-of-required...

sporkenfang 12y ago

Anecdotal evidence, but my primary school teacher's refrain was "math is hard!". Not exactly helpful, and it was puzzling to me as a primary schooler since, you know, addition and subtraction aren't so bad. I still remember it because she said it so damned often. If we could reach people like her and make the impression that such attitudes are detrimental to the future of every child she teaches, perhaps more progress could be made.

no1ne 12y ago

this seems very HN worthy ... let's turn this place into shit also -_- ... also im going to leave this here for all those "concerned" people ... http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discriminate-against-boys/ http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discrimi...

no1ne 12y ago
I see "triggered" people down-voting ... lel