The Math Gender Gap: The Role of Culture

Abstract

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Explaining Gender Differences in Confidence and Overconfidence in Math

“…Several studies have proposed important channels through which substantial gaps in male and female math attainments are produced: socialized gender roles (Guiso et al 2008;Fryer and Levitt 2010;Nollenberger et al 2016;Pope and Sydnor 2010); male-oriented school and societal environments (Autor et al 2016;Joensen and Nielsen 2014;Bedard and Cho 2010); gender differences in preference and competitiveness Vesterlund 2007 andBuser et al 2014;Gneezy et al 2003); and behavioral and environmental differences during childhood (Chetty et al 2016). These studies underscore an interactive relationship between gender gaps in math and societal environments (nurture) instead of an innate imbalance (nature) in quantitative abilities between men and women.…”

Toward Value Co-Creation: Increasing Women’s Presence in Management Positions through Competition against a Set Target

“…However, most of these studies have focused on testing a particular competition type against others, the winner-takes-all (WTA) competition. Decisions in WTA competition relate to key variables such as culture [9,15,16], gender identity (cooperative or non-cooperative [17]), self-confidence [18][19][20][21], risk/ambiguity attitudes [15,21], or combinations of these variables [20].…”

Gender Gaps in Early Educational Achievement

“…There is a striking lack of uniformity in the achievement gap. The relationship between gender and relative educational achievement varies with the social, cultural, and educational context, for example, (Pope & Sydnor 2010;Nollenberger et al 2014;Lavy & Sand 2015), opening the possibility that each might play a role in generating the gap. Achievement gaps also vary with students' race and ethnicity (Penner & Paret 2008;Husain & Millimet 2009), with their families' and peers' socio-economic status (Entwisle et al 2007;Legewie & DiPrete 2012) as well as across the achievement distribution itself (e.g.…”

“…Baker & Milligan 2013;Bertrand & Pan 2013); iii) social and cultural influences (e.g. Guiso et al 2008;Nollenberger et al 2014); iv) gender differences in the acquisition of social and behavioral skills (e.g. DiPrete & Jennings 2012); and v) gender-specific educational practices, 5 See OECD (2015) and Lavy and Sand (2015) for recent and particularly helpful reviews.…”

“…There are suggestions, for example, that girls' underperformance at the upper extreme of the mathematical achievement distribution is linked to them being less likely to: i) enroll in advanced math and science classes in high school; ii) complete science and technology degrees in university; and iii) subsequently be employed in technology-related occupations such as engineering or computer science (see Penner & Paret 2008;Nollenberger et al 2014;Lavy & Sand 2015). Boys' weaker literacy skills and poorer classroom behavior (at least as assessed by teachers) have been linked to their higher retention rate (Entwisle et al 2007), while increased retention, in combination with more disciplinary incidents and lower grades, are thought to explain much of the relative gap in young men's propensity to attend college (Jacob 2002).…”