Gender inequality causes girls to underperform math

In societies where men and women are treated fairly, girls will learn math better, sometimes surpassing boys. But in countries where men and women are important, women are vulnerable to math.

(Photo: ABC News)

For decades, researchers still argue that boys often learn math better than girls. Does men have better logical thinking ability and therefore more scientific achievements? Or girls are not encouraged by family and society to follow science?

Now researchers believe they have found at least one answer: that difference comes from where a girl lives.

"In societies with a low gender gap, the gap in the level of mathematics education between the sexes is also low," said researcher Paola Sapienza at Northwestern University, USA.

In the study, the team looked at the math test score of more than 276,000 students from 40 countries. Accordingly, girls globally have a math score of 10.5 points lower than boys.

Usually, there are two reasons for this gap: biology and habitat. Biologically, it is thought that boys have better innate thinking ability than girls. But this opinion is not widely accepted. The point of view on the environment is that girls do not study math well because they are not encouraged by society to follow the natural sciences.

Sapienza and colleagues compared the test results with each country and found that in some countries, the difference in math scores did not exist. The group continues to explore the gender inequality index of countries, which identifies women's access to health and career care resources, as well as the position of women in the labor force. dynamics and political apparatus.

The results show that there is a correlation between gender inequality and gender disparity in math scores.

In Iceland, the country with the highest gender equality index, girls also exceeded their boys' math scores by 14 points. In Turkey, with the lowest gender equality, girls have the lowest math scores, 22.6 points lower than boys.

Although the study only explored some of the environmental impacts of girls' math learning outcomes, researchers also concluded that gender equality plays an important role in promoting energy. women's power in math.