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Girls vs Boys in STEM and non-STEM

posted by martyb on Monday December 10 2018, @01:33AM   
from the unexpected-causes dept.

hendrikboom writes:

In a landmark study involving over a million students, it appears that the reason boys dominate girls in STEM fields is not that they are better than girls at it (the reverse seems to be true) but, perversely, that gender differences are lower in non-STEM fields.

About the STEM grades, which are often abused as an explanation:

A classroom with more variable grades indicates a bigger gap between high and low performing students, and greater male variability could result in boys outnumbering girls at the top and bottom of the class.

“Greater male variability is an old idea that people have used to claim that there will always be more male geniuses – and fools – in society,” O’Dea says.

The team found that on average, girls’ grades were higher than boys’, and girls’ grades were less variable than boys’.

But girls' and boys' variability were much closer in non-STEM fields.

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Original Submission

• The uneven playing fieldThe uneven playing field (Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Monday December 10 2018, @09:51AM (4 children)

  by looorg (578) on Monday December 10 2018, @09:51AM (#772299)

  "Landmark study", really? It's not exactly news that girls do better then boys in school if one looks at grades -- across more or less every single subject. That is quite literally old news. That is even acknowledged in the study.

  “We already knew that girls routinely outperform boys at school, and we also expected female grades to be less variable than those of males, so that wasn’t surprising. In fact, our study suggests that these two factors haven’t changed in 80 years,” O’Dea says.

  The interesting part here is that they note that girls are conformist, so for them to be good at maths (or STEM) it requires other girls to be good at it to -- so they can or are allowed to (socially) conform. So for that to happen there has to be some outliers or trailblazers to lead the way first. Guess those are few and far between, that or girls just have to stop giving a shit about what other people think and do and do things for themselves that they want to do.

  Sadly they keep coming back to the same old solution to the problem as always -- more preferential treatment for girls. Tilting the playing field even more then it already is in the favor of girls, it's already massively tilted in their favor. It's the standard solution to this, and all girl student problems. Then naturally they are left wondering why the boys are actually just doing worse and worse every passing year. I guess they just are not "applying themselves" enough ... I wonder why that is ...

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• Re:The uneven playing fieldRe:The uneven playing field (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 10 2018, @05:32PM (3 children)

  by Nuke (3162) on Monday December 10 2018, @05:32PM (#772431)

  That is right and It is because girls mature faster than boys, and that has long been known as a factor in education circles. As an aside it is evident that many "boys" never grow up mentally at all (present company excepted LoL!) : obvious examples being Elon Musk and Fred Dibner (the UK guys will know who I mean), while the number of girls who never grow up mentally ... well I cannot think of any examples off hand. But the slower mentally maturing ones of either sex tend to overtake the faster ones intellectually in the long run.

  Parent

  • Re:The uneven playing field(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @06:03PM (#772452)

    "while the number of girls who never grow up mentally ... well I cannot think of any examples off hand"

    You don't date, do you?

    Parent

  • Re:The uneven playing fieldRe:The uneven playing field (Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday December 11 2018, @01:40PM (1 child)

    by Muad'Dave (1413) on Tuesday December 11 2018, @01:40PM (#772845)

    > ... Fred Dibner (the UK guys will know who I mean) ...

    Did you mean Fred Dibnah [wikipedia.org]? Even as an American I know who he was.

    Parent

    • Re:The uneven playing field(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:49PM

      by Nuke (3162) on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:49PM (#772996)

      Yes, Fred Dibnah : sorry for the slip.

      Parent