-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 06/26/2013 04:15 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 08:44:09AM +0800, Charles Haynes wrote: >> at least in the USA it's clear that girls are steered away from STEM >> curricula by a variety of mechansims, primarily social. Girls aren't >> "supposed" to like Maths, and so they don't. Girls that show an interest or >> aptitude are subtly or not so subtly told that this is inappropriate, that >> they're weird, that they will be unpopular, and so on. >> >> In fact until they're told they should be bad at it, girls generally show >> higher aptitude for maths than boys of comparable age. > > I'm not buying that explanation. I expect that the divergence happens > at puberty. Does it? >
I'd be interested in seeing the studies that report the results Charles is discussing, if for no other reason than to see how they conducted determining when society told girls that math proficiency was bad. On the other hand though, there is Claude Steele's stereotype threat, which has had some really interesting applications and results, especially when you change which stereotype identity is forefront in a person's mind. For example, he (I believe, may have been one of his grad students) found a number of mathematically skilled (read graduate level) asian women in the US. Stereotypically, women are worse at math than men, asians are adept at it. Depending on which stereotype the test groups were made salient towards significantly changed their test scores on a standardised maths exam. The real takeaway though is that cultural forces, like those Charles believes 'doom' young girls are actually somewhat easy to mitigate, both from a social norms perspective, and the stereotype threat standpoint. For the former, every time a woman ends up being held up as a unique success in maths, engineering, etc it actually hurts the cause because it reinforces the cultural view that 'normal' girls do not do math, and thus reverses the intended effect. The solution is instead to create the pervasive belief that women are normally involved in these fields. I'd consider that more of informing the public than creating propaganda, since many women are actually involved already. Robert Cialdini has some interesting papers, but my favourite anecdote is from a contract he did at a state park in Arizona. It turned out that despite significant efforts to reduce the number of people from taking fossils (mainly in the way of signs: please don't take any more fossils or there will be no more left), the depletion rate actually increased after the public campaign. It turns out that being told that other people were taking fossils significantly affected the odds of you doing it as well (called the descriptive norm), despite the signs indicating the maladaptive consequences (and illegality). A similar analyses was done the Iron Eye's Cody service announcement, and it was found that it actually caused more littering in a number of regions. Stereotype threat is actually even simpler to alleviate, although it needs to take place at a more individual level. The threat works essentially because in alienating situations where they are clear outliers (ethnicity for example), people tend to adopt behaviours that others expect of them, so that they more conform within society. It turns out something as simple as a written self-affirmation (I am good at math, I want to be a....) works pretty well at negating the regression to the stereotype. The actual function of this is still unknown, but it works, for children and adults, surprisingly enough. At a meta-analytic proposition, the self-affirmation likely decreases the existential threat from the isolation, and the subject is able to maintain internal integrity, rather than needing to regress to the stereotype. landon - -- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJRyqxaAAoJEDeph/0fVJWs0lQP/0DkOIGkfpX3pQwF4YveyIJ+ tfKoiuV4RGrUNYS+27rrMs5pX1zvRHwlI1CMmbtyVdtnVAjos9ZdZUF96njK0wmt rOU2eiKl2W4FOVFemwpxrx9s4M0n8fK0iShQO3rhi4Wb6F3Fl/mjmby3Xf7C29bZ Vxwic2OkxjN+GvJc++esAhVnq6yapo+BoN02qLmGA6H3dXyl6XAyZpQPnnvpSI81 qiDtyJBx+fYpDXq809Fb5fxh33Vr9WWkJRu7LN9gGxCe9FNbzs9mzayOjOzn9Adt oTXmMEK9oHm1+JD9/Rt7B5DUFHvtuXz5ebwz1cxWgsPJb4lAjg/LBaUER2VCMScB kRguDji3eQv42prrocCEgsyA9//zV2IUO1yBSBS1eyFEaO9r9WRI+p89Ta267TBR H9ydxvxAgiugAq7aKr5TqIk6AqEzH1T3lHQCcZ/oJK2EAbrohCuy9z2JXJmeFOIF 591KYOWFdOyo8x3NIBsrXJloJOEq2v/E73Ayx28lbNuQxQl/6+CnuxXE8N+zMge3 WzTbYRUi0bW15MzUZqAjhjfO4b3iSyl2FsyQJoGwDMLK4msAVwi8BmsBxmYQL0XA MkikveG+wxckBJpckalyXoTipF+cYe8N+0L7RsVH3a1Yh6F26CUaz3Oe5IXmcJuQ wH15XB8xYe9sXtsgUDrQ =ANIy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
