Gender, culture, and mathematics performance

Hyde, J. S., & Mertz, J. E. (2009). Gender, culture, and mathematics performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(22), 8801-8807.

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Historically, studies have shown that in the primary grades, there are no significant gender differences in mathematics performance but that during the middle grades, boys started to improve at a faster rate than girls. During the early 1990s, research indicated that there is no difference between girls and boys at any age level for overall mathematics performance, however, boys scored higher on complex problem solving test items. More recent data show that the difference previously shown in complex problem solving skills is no longer a significant difference. The decrease in disparity between girls’ and boys’ performance correlates strongly with an increase in female enrollment in advanced mathematics courses such as calculus. In terms of highly mathematically talented individuals, previously it was believed that males experience greater variation in intellectual ability, accounting for the low representation of women with mathematical talent. Recent research indicates that gender differences within the 95^th percentile vary across ethnicities and nationalities. For example, significantly more men scored in the 95^th percentile than women for Caucasian students, but Asian American females were more likely to score in the 95^th percentile than Asian American males. This suggests that gender differences for highly talented mathematics students are influenced more by cultural differences than by gender differences.