Female Engineers

[renata]

Bpesta, I only took basic psych as part of my undergrad degree in bio several years back, so I have no references or expertise. However, I remember reading that some speculated that the reason women deteriorate in math skills after puberty is unequal teaching and expectations. In particular, I remember reading (and I have no links at all, so perhaps it is all feel good bs) that
1. boys tend to be called on more and encouraged in math courses
2. boys tend to take more math courses than girls , women tended to be steered more towards humanistic disciplines
3. When girls from all girl schools were compared with boys , their math abilities were equal to them, and much better than girls from co-ed schools who were intimidated by the boys and somewhat picked over by the teachers. This last one is frequently used in favor of all girl schools still.

Is there any truth in that at all? I assume those things would have been checked for and controlled for in the studies you mentioned.

 

[dissonance]

Well, it's real science published in an A journal, so I'm not sure I can find a link to it on the net. I will check though.

I have a Ph.D. in cognitive psych, for what it's worth, and it is that cut and dried.

You could change my mind simply by showing me the data, but good luck in that regard. I think the only more replicated effects in all of psychology is either cognitive slowing with age or the fact that males are more aggressive than females (uhm, guess what causes this one too

Don't get me started on the black white thingy either

Have you looked at the stereotype threat lit? That's published in real journals (JESP, JPSP). Basically, when in a situation where they might be judged in terms of the negative stereotype about women's math abilities, women don't do as well as men on math tests. When given the exact same test, but it's described in such a way as to make the stereotype irrelevant, women do just as well as men. It's an interesting literature (in the interests of full disclosure, it's one of my areas of research).

Although if you're a coggie, maybe you don't consider social psych a real science (There's very little love lost between the social and cognitive divisions in my department, although that has more to do with space allocation politics than theoretical differences...)