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Competence in mathematics has long been identified as a critical skill directly related to educational and occupational choices. Yet compared with men, fewer women elect to take advanced level mathematics courses and to enter mathematically oriented careers. This review first summarizes the common explanations of this problem and then integrates this research into a theoretical model first proposed by Parsons and her colleagues for studying students' academic choices and decisions, Drawing on concepts used in decision-making, in achievement, and in attribution research, this psychological model links academic choice to expectations of success and the subjective value of a particular course. In addition, the model specifies the relations among a set of other variables that are believed to mediate individual differences in both students' expectations of success and their perceptions of the relative value of various academic options, The utility of this model for increasing our understanding of course enrollment patterns and career decisions and for designing appropriate intervention strategies is discussed.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Wiley-Blackwell and Society for Research in Child Development are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Child Development.of Achievement Attitudes and Beliefs: Parental Influences. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 310-321. To assess the impact of parents on children's achievement self-concept and related beliefs, extensive questionnaires measuring attitudes and beliefs regarding mathematics achievement were administered to children in grades 5-11 and their parents. The potential influence of parents both as role models and as expectancy socializers was investigated. Both mothers and fathers held sex-differentiated perceptions of their children's math aptitude despite the similarity of the actual performance of boys and girls. The difference was most marked for parents' estimates of how hard their children had to try to do well in math. Parents of daughters believed their child had to work harder to do well in math than parents of sons. Parents of sons thought advanced math was more important for their child than parents of daughters. Parents' perceptions of and expectations for their children were related to both the children's perceptions of their parents' beliefs and to the children's self-and task perceptions. Further, parents' beliefs were more directly related to children's self-concepts and expectancies than were the children's past performances in math. Path analysis supported our hypothesis that the children's attitudes were influenced more by their parents' attitudes about their abilities than by their own past performances. Finally, parents as role models of sex-differentiated math behaviors did not have a direct effect on their children's self-concepts, expectations, or course plans. The existence of a sex difference in expectancies for success and in self-concept of ability from middle childhood on is well documented (see Frieze, Fisher, Hanusa, McHugh, & Valle [1978]; Lenney [1977]; Parsons, Ruble, Hodges, & Small [1976]; and Stein & Bailey [1973] for reviews). However, the developmental origins of this difference are unclear. Parsons et al. (1976) suggested several ways in which teachers and parents might be perpetuating, if not creating, this sex difference. While several recent studies of possible teacher influences have emerged (e.g., Brophy & Good 1974; Dweck, Davidson, Nelson, & Enna 1978), there have been virtually no recent studies of parental influences. The study reported herein was designed to assess parental influences on children's achievement expectancies and selfconcepts of ability with a particular focus on the contributions of parents to the commonly reported sex differences. The roles of parents both as models and as expect...

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To compare four major social cognitive theories of sex differences in achievement, 200 students in Grades 8-10 were given the following attitudinal measures regarding both math and English: self-concept of ability, subjective task value, perceived task difficulty, and continuing motivation. In a follow-up, the students' math course enrollment decisions were assessed each year through high school. One hundred forty-two of these students also participated in an experimental session in which they were exposed to two sets of trials: a number sequence set and an anagram set. Outcome was manipulated across trials (success, failure, success). For each series, students provided estimates of their ability, their expectations for continued success, and causal attributions. Their response time, persistence, and accuracy were recorded. Finally, teacher estimates of learned helplessness were obtained in Year 1 of the study for all students. Four important results emerged: (a) Subjective task value emerged as the strongest mediator of sex differences in achievementrelated behaviors and plans; (b) there was little support for learned-helplessness models of sex differences in achievement; (c) there was some evidence of sex differences in ability attributions, but these differences occurred only among lowexpectancy subjects; and (d) verbal and behavioral indexes of achievement beliefs were often inconsistent. The implications of these results for general attribution theory and for sex-difference theory are discussed.Two areas of cognitive functioning reveal example, among the bachelor degrees awarded fairly consistent patterns of sex differences, in 1979, women received only 6% of those in Girls typically perform better than boys on engineering, 18% in computer and informaverbal tasks, whereas boys perform better than tipnal science, 18% in physical science, and girls on quantitative tasks; these differences, 34% in mathematics. In contrast, 80% of however, are quite small, accounting for only bachelor degrees in letters, 68% in education, l%-2% of variance in the criterion measure, and 80% in library science went to women and do not occur with regularity until the ad-(Randour, Strasburg, & Lipman-Blumen, descent years (see Eccles, 1983;Hyde, 1981Hyde, ). 1982. Several different explanations have been Sex differences in high school courses enroll-offered to account for these sex differences in ment, college majors, and adult careers reflect academic achievement patterns. In this study, a similar, though more extreme, pattern. For we compare and test the four most popular of the attitudinal and motivational explanations.' :In particular, we compare explanations grow-This research was funded by National Institute of Mental in 8 out of self-concept theory, attribution the-Health Grant i RO i MH 31724 and a Spencer Foundation ory, learned-helplessness/mastery-orientation grant to the first author. We extend grateful acknowledg-theory, and expectancy-value theory. ments to Carol Midgley, Caroline Kaczala, Toby Jayaratne; to the count...