Girls Learn to Suck at Math from Teacher Insecurities

Girls + math = fail?

This equation is part sexist stereotype (yes, please do click on the link above for an amusing xkcd cartoon on the subject), part real question: why do fewer women emerge as math hot-shots. While the gender gap on mathematics has been closing, women remain underrepresented in math-intensive courses of study, especially doctoral programs, and jobs. Should we blame the guidance counselors who encourage girls to take a nice English class rather than deal with all those troublesome numbers? How about the deterrent of being one of the only girls on the school's math team? Yes, I've had both those experiences as a student.

There are a number of forces at stake, but a new study out of the University of Chicago, as Whitney Teal reports on the Women's Rights blog, finds that many gals learn they can't do math from teacher insecurities. Most elementary school teachers, who teach the full range of subjects, are women, so their female students will take them as role models and internalize the messages they send. When women teachers are nervous about doing math problems in front of their students, girls get the message early on that XX chromosomes can't do math. If the girls explicitly buy into the stereotype that girls suck at math, they make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Interestingly, the study doesn't even say that female teachers are necessarily worse than male teachers at math. Rather, it points out that most primary school teachers can go through college math-free, so they're overall more likely to have insecurities with equations. But since women comprise an overwhelming majority of elementary schools teachers, girls are the ones who get the bad-at-math message -- which no doubt combines with recognition of societal stereotypes regarding the math-challenged sex to deprive a world of all the women math mavens we could otherwise have.

Photo credit: Paulette.Sedgwick