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Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

pnas.org

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Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#11

Post by rowanG077 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #10
tyingq wrote: post #2

I wonder how this theory squares with the relatively high percentage of women that are accountants, tax advisors, investment professionals, actuaries, etc.

Obviously, those (as well as, say, the biological sciences) are not “math intensive fields”, despite appearances to the contrary, whereas churning out CRUD apps is math intensive... EDIT: Or, to be fair to the authors, other factors besides relative reading ability, as well as as accounting for the other 20% of the gender gap in math-intensive fields in general, also explain the gender distribution between particular…

They aren't “math intensive fields”, they are "calculation intensive fields".

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#12

Post by norswap »

dragonwriter wrote: post #10
tyingq wrote: post #2

I wonder how this theory squares with the relatively high percentage of women that are accountants, tax advisors, investment professionals, actuaries, etc.

Obviously, those (as well as, say, the biological sciences) are not “math intensive fields”, despite appearances to the contrary, whereas churning out CRUD apps is math intensive... EDIT: Or, to be fair to the authors, other factors besides relative reading ability, as well as as accounting for the other 20% of the gender gap in math-intensive fields in general, also explain the gender distribution between particular…

I was puzzled by "churning out CRUD apps is math intensive" - could you explain?

I do agree that the aforementioned fields are not necessarily math-intensive — except investment professional in certain cases.

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#13

Post by Bostonian »

I see vastly more attention given to areas where girls are under-represented, with the belief that such disparities are inequities to be fixed, than I do to areas where males perform worse. It seems that male deficits are largely accepted. Could the male disadvantage in reading be reduced by different instructional methods (more phonics) or with reading material that appeals to boys?

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#14

Post by turk73 »

darkwater wrote: post #3

Is this suggesting that girls do not choose STEM faculties because they can read better so they like more humanistic faculties, where there are more texts (as in literature books) to read? Or my text comprehension is that bad?

Maybe they're just better at sniffing out bullsheet and not getting involved with it in the first place?

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#15

Post by JoeNr76 »

rowanG077 wrote: post #11
dragonwriter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, those (as well as, say, the biological sciences) are not “math intensive fields”, despite appearances to the contrary, whereas churning out CRUD apps is math intensive... EDIT: Or, to be fair to the authors, other factors besides relative reading ability, as well as as accounting for the other 20% of the gender gap in math-intensive fields in general, also explain the gender distribution between particular…

They aren't “math intensive fields”, they are "calculation intensive fields".

I think you should check your irony meter.

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#16

Post by [deleted] »

norswap wrote: post #12
dragonwriter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, those (as well as, say, the biological sciences) are not “math intensive fields”, despite appearances to the contrary, whereas churning out CRUD apps is math intensive... EDIT: Or, to be fair to the authors, other factors besides relative reading ability, as well as as accounting for the other 20% of the gender gap in math-intensive fields in general, also explain the gender distribution between particular…

I was puzzled by "churning out CRUD apps is math intensive" - could you explain? I do agree that the aforementioned fields are not necessarily math-intensive — except investment professional in certain cases.

[deleted]

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#17

Post by Retric »

tyingq wrote: post #2

I wonder how this theory squares with the relatively high percentage of women that are accountants, tax advisors, investment professionals, actuaries, etc.

I don’t know about gender differences.

The classes are at least initially perceived as easy for most people, but while some find them fun other find it horribly boring. So, my guess it’s less about aptitude than liking the kind of work involved.

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#19

Post by johnrbent »

I don't know much about this field (and I did not purchase the full article), but it seems like quite a leap to assume this is a source of the gender-gap. First of all, you're talking about 80% of one standard deviation difference in reading-to-math scores between males and females - that doesn't seem like enough to study it as the cause of anything.

And how does being better at reading steer people away from STEM? There is just as much reading going on in STEM as out, and arguably more intensive reading in.

It seems like the score difference is probably related to the gender-gap somehow, but I doubt it is a cause. I would be interested in reading the article if it was freely available.

Re: Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM

#20

Post by Diggsey »

orwin wrote: post #9
darkwater wrote: post #3

Is this suggesting that girls do not choose STEM faculties because they can read better so they like more humanistic faculties, where there are more texts (as in literature books) to read? Or my text comprehension is that bad?

Not exactly. From what i understood, this article is telling that if someone feel he is better at reading/comprehension than he is at math, he is more likely to not go into math-related field, regardless of his math performance compared to the average. To dumb it up, most of the time, you don't go into a math-related field because you compare your math skills with other, but because you compare your math skills with…

That's interesting and a very strange idea to me, I never considered comparing "maths ability" vs "reading ability" because I never saw subjects on a scale from "reading maths".

For me the scale was more like "problem solving wrote learning" and I did everything I could to avoid stuff on the RHS.

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