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From: psuvm%cjc@psuvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: RE: Sex Differences - Math
Message-ID: <864@psuvm.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-May-84 13:45:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvm.864
Posted: Sat May 19 13:45:45 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 20-May-84 00:33:35 EDT
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   My strongly-held personal feeling is that each person should be
treated as an INDIVIDUAL, not a member of any group, sex, race, etc.,
(unless relevance of that group membership can be demonstrated)
However I also feel strongly that it is better to try to see the
world as it IS, not as we would like it to be. The question of
sex-related difference in math ability has not been proven, but there
is evidence that it is not entirely environmental.

   I recommend reading a report in "Science" 2 Dec, 1983, also other
publications referred to in that article, and followup letters that were
printed in "Science" sometime this spring. This report is by Benbow
and Stanley on recent results of the Johns Hopkins Study of
Mathematically Precocious Youth. Very briefly: during 1980, 81, and 82,
19,833 boys and 19,937 girls in the seventh grade or of typical seventh
grade age (12 years)applied for and took the mathematical part of the SAT,
which was designed to measure mathematical reasoning of 11th and 12th
grade students. The mean score for the boys was 416 (S.D. = 87) and
for the girls 386 (S.D. =37); the ratio of boys to girls among those
who scored >= 500 was 2.1:1; among those who scored >= 600 the ratio
was 4.1:1.  Substantial differences between the boys and girls attitudes
or backgrounds were not found, nor were there substantial differences
in stated interest in mathematics, taking of math courses in high school,
or in math course grades.  A similar nationwide talent search, less
well studied, located 260 boys and 20 girls who scored >= 700, a ratio
of 13:2.

  My own feeling is that in math and most other areas, males are not
necessarily better, but rather more variable, ie. more at the high
end of the scale and also more at the low. (In this article it was
reported that the boys' scores had a larger variance than the girls'.)
This idea apparently has been studied somewhat, but I haven't yet
seen any writings about it; I'd like to see some discussion here.

C. Clark  (cjc@psuvm - Bitnet)