Explaining gendered math enrollments for NSW Australian secondary school students

Abstract

This study examined why female adolescents choose to opt out of the math pipeline during high school more often than males, which has implications for their long‐term careers.

The role of motivation in gendered educational and occupational trajectories related to maths

“…However, Eccles and colleagues have not been able to distinguish empirically these ability and expectancies constructs (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995;Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Elsewhere I have argued that this is likely to be due to ability perceptions mostly having been operationalised through broad questions asking students to rate their own performance in different areas (see Eccles & Wigfield, 1995), such that their responses may depend partly on evaluations of their performance and partly on evaluations of their aptitude (see Watt, 2002Watt, , 2004Watt, , 2005. It has been claimed that natural talent is a concept that best represents the notion of ability distinct from performance (Bornholt et al, 1994, based on Green, 1974, and empirical support for the distinction between talent and ability perceptions as commonly operationalised in the literature has been provided by Watt (2002Watt ( , 2004.…”

Gender Differences in Perceived Value of a Program to Promote Academic and Career Success for Students with Disabilities

“…Factors identified as contributors to this gender underrepresentation include discrimination, social pressure from parents and peers, and internalized negative attitudes and beliefs about mathematics (European Commission, 2001;Roger & Duffield, 2000;Steele, 1997;Watt, 2005). Sex role stereotyping promotes the notion that boys are inherently better at math and have more use for math skills than girls (e.g., Eccles, 1994).…”

Rendimiento en la PAU y elección de estudios Científico-Tecnológicos en razón de género= Achievement the university entrance exam and election of Scientific-Technological degrees by gender

“…Asimismo, las investigaciones constatan que los varones se decantan por la física, las matemáticas y la ingeniería (Nosek, Banaji y Greenwald, 2002). Además, los chicos proyectan participar y seleccionan, más que las chicas, cursos avanzados de matemáticas (Watt, 2005(Watt, , 2006.…”

“…En los últimos 20 años se han realizado muchos estudios para analizar el rendimiento de chicos y chicas en los dominios disciplinares "masculinos". Desde esta perspectiva, se ha constatado que no hay diferencias de rendimiento en matemáticas (Bleeker y Jacobs, 2004;Brynes, 2005;Catsambis, 2005;Tiedemann, 2000;Watt, 2005) o en informática (Beyer et al, 2003).…”

“…Por último, las Matemáticas II, objeto de debate y fuerte controversia, arroja datos muy parecidos, si bien en dos cursos la diferencia estadísticamente significativa es a favor de las mujeres. No se puede hablar, pues, de un rendimiento diferencial significativo entre varones y mujeres con relación a las materias científicas y tecnológicas, tal y como corroboran estudios realizados en otros países (Bleeker y Jacobs, 2004;Brynes, 2005;Caplan y Caplan, 2005;Catsambis, 2005;Stewart, 1998;Tiedemann, 2000;Watt, 2005). Sí se dan diferencias significativas a favor de las mujeres en dos asignaturas que no se analizan aquí como son Filosofía y Lengua Española.…”