Student Gender Differences

Learning Styles and Classroom Behavior

Impact of Socialization
Throughout their learning girls are encouraged to be passive, caring, to take no risks, and to defer to male voices in the public discussion. They are also given the message that math is for males. Such an orientation obviously has an impact on how they learn and behave in school.
As children grow, they are often unconsciously encouraged to adopt sex-stereotyped roles. Boys are encouraged to play with action toys, learning about mathematical concepts. Young girls are encouraged to learn to express themselves verbally, with little opportunity to experience those math concepts (velocity, angles, three-dimensional configurations) that become the core of mathematics. While still learning language and discourse skills, young boys, as opposed to young girls, learn to be comfortable with a physical world, and to be able to translate that physical world into the discourse of the math class. For boys, mathematics is not just an abstract concept, but a firm part of their experiential base, and they can visualize math processes. For instance, young boys can create a three dimensional object "in their heads." Young girls often need to try to construct this knowledge without a base in reality; it therefore seems to have no relevance to their own experiences (Hensel, 1989). Girls try to create a process they cannot "see" by using words rather than mental pictures, using the one skill they have developed.

Differential Discourse Styles
For many females, mathematics language, its discourse mode, and the dynamics of the classroom are oppositional to the way they are socialized to interact and communicate. On the other hand, males socialized toward an individualistic perspective may be more comfortable with "interaction based on individual expertise and presentation and elaboration of abstract concepts" (Kramarae & Treichler, 1990).

Research over the past ten years has challenged the assumption that teaching to men and women is experienced in the same way (Weiler, 1988; Sadker & Sadker, 1985; Weis, 1988; Gabriel & Smithson, 1990). Indeed, no two students receive the same learning experience in the same way. Compounding learning differences are the sex role stereotypes that define expectations for males and females, and their membership in different race, socioeconomic, and ethnic groups.

For example, while the women in Kramarae and Treichler's study of college students made explicit statements about the structure of the learning process, the men's focus on the importance of debates about ideas suggests there are two discourse models operating. The women place importance on mutual support and the building of collaborative knowledge. Male priority is based on individual expertise and the presentation and debate around abstract concepts. Although how participants in a class talk actually shapes the discourse and discovery process, traditional nonpersonal hierarchical classroom interaction tends to support the male discourse model.

Further, while males engage in the discourse, females write papers. This may enable women to earn good grades, but they miss out on mastering the thought processes required for a verbal debate. Additionally, the role of writing is played out differently in the humanities and social sciences, where females have long been more active and comfortable. The role of writing in mathematics for the most part may not play the connective role it does in other areas. Felt knowledge comes from the interaction with others in the mutual construction of knowledge. If female students are excluded from that construction they cannot move into the conversation later as part of their careers. For many women, then, the discourse of mathematics and science can become another equivalent of "sports talk" which remains within the male domain.

For those women who attempt to enter into the discourse as equals by adopting a male discourse model, the response is no better. Women are often penalized for attempting to participate in the "male domain." Often the perception of behavior is confused with actual behavior, based on sex-role stereotypes. While a male might be called ambitious, assertive, and independent, a women displaying the same behaviors is often labeled aggressive, pushy, and argumentative. Studies continue to show that when women and men exhibit the same behavior, that behavior is devalued for women (Pearson, 1987).

Barbara McClintock, winner of the Nobel prize in science for her research on the genetics of corn, talked of her research as communication with her work, "you had to have the patience. . .to hear what [the corn] has to say to you and the openness to "let it come to you'" (Belenky, Vicker, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986). When applied to mathematics, this sense of connected discourse makes the field come alive for many women. For instance, adding discussions of "responsibility and care" to the teaching of calculus enabled two professors to increase the interest and achievement of females in the discipline. These ranged from the large issues of population growth, pollution control, and infectious disease to the more familiar issues such as "How would you work out how many great-great-great-great grandparents you had?" (Barnes & Coupland, 1990).

Although considerable research is aimed at "solving the problem" of female underachievement in mathematics, few interdisciplinary applications exist that draw on anthropology, sociology, or linguistics to examine the context for this mathematics "problem" and to explore long- and short-range strategies to respond. For too many, the question of girls and mathematics achievement continues to focus on the question of why girls don't achieve rather than what is it in the classrooms or the culture that creates barriers to math success for girls. Or, as Borasi (1991) asks, "How could school mathematics be changed in order to become more appealing to women and better accommodate their thinking and learning styles?"

Attitudes toward Mathematics Learning

Math as a "Male" Subject
The issue of self selection-making choices to opt out of activities that put girls into settings where they can develop an understanding and appreciation for math and technology may well be in place by the time girls reach preschool. The strong social messages remain that technology, mathematics, and science are nontraditional arenas for girls. Girls, feeling less confident in their abilities in these areas, self-select out; both boys and girls define science and mathematics as "male" as early as the second grade (Klein, 1989). Unfortunately, attitudes and behavior that reinforce children's math perceptions often remain unconscious and unacknowledged by classroom teachers or parents, themselves the products of a sex role stereotyped socialization.
Both male and female students in one state study agreed that math, science, and gym favored males ("boys like gross things" and "girls could care less about spiders, ticks, and mice"). Their explanations for this were traditionally gender-stereotyped: girls only need math for grocery shopping; girls avoid advanced computer classes because they "don't want that brainy image" and "girls can't get into science the way boys do because it just doesn't have anything to do with their future or careers" (Michigan State Board of Education, 1991).

This perception is backed up by the finding that liking mathematics is a primary factor in whether or not students do well. Students who say they like mathematics perform better on math tests (Lockheed, Thorpe, Brooks-Gunn, Casserly, & McAloon, 1985). The liking or not liking of a particular class is based in part on a student's feelings of success within that class - feelings based not just on academic achievement but also on their felt experiences in the class. Campbell and others have found that girls' confidence in themselves as math learners, their perception of math as a difficult subject, and their view that math is a male activity, all have impact on girls' attitudes, achievement, and participation in advanced courses (Campbell, 1986). In a longitudinal study of sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades, Tartre and Fennema (1991) found that, for girls, viewing math as a male domain was correlated to math achievement. Girls - for instance those in single-sex schools or in out-of-school math projects - who do not see mathematics as an exclusively male domain tend to have higher math success. When this dynamic is changed to make mathematics accessible to both girls and boys, girls interest and involvement rises.

Usefulness of Math Knowledge
A student's belief that mathematics has utility in his or her life (Fennema & Sherman, 1978) and the teacher's belief that students should be active participants in learning and doing mathematics are also important components in building an affinity to mathematics. For instance, in a related study of gender-related involvement with Lego TC logo, middle school girls' interest and involvement with Lego TC increased considerably when mixed gender groups were designed to give girls the key roles of key boarder and spokesperson (Cutler-Landsman, 1991). Initially, while girls were included as active learners in all groups, the projects students undertook did not seem relevant to girls and they quickly lost interest. However, when the structure was changed to truly integrate girls and boys into team projects and to provide girls with an opportunity to select projects, girls began to express considerable interest because they had the opportunity to share the boys' expertise in legos (which they had come into the class with). The change in classroom structure to place girls in a position of relative power and importance as spokespersons enabled girls to both familiarize themselves with computer language and to develop the skills and confidence to "explain the project and reflect on the problem solving strategies [emphasis added] their group employed."

Mathematics Course Taking
While there is little difference in achievement in early grades, there is a significant difference in the number of advanced courses taken by males as opposed to females. If girls are clustered in lower level mathematics, their knowledge will be significantly less than males, particularly white males, who take advanced courses (Pallas & Alexander, 1983). The self-selecting out of mathematics in high school points to another message - one of sex role stereotyping - that mathematics is not for girls. Whether or not this is an overt message or part of the general socialization of females, by the time girls get to high school they "know" they do not belong in mathematics.

Thus, women are not present at the post-secondary level and in the work world of mathematics, science, or technology. By the time they reach college, most young women have opted out of mathematics- and technology-related programs, a process that begins to be most apparent after high school geometry. This phenomenon and its relationship to socialization can be seen in the enrollment in computer classes. While most computer activity is non-numeric, and computer use should not be perceived of as strictly a mathematics program, in most schools it is. And the limited enrollment of girls and young women reflects the distancing of females from mathematics. From elementary school through college, enrollment patterns consistently show fewer females than males using computers or participating in computer-related courses. In high schools, males outnumber females two to one in computer classes, while at the university level only 26.5 percent of master's degrees and 8.4 percent of doctorates in computer and information services were earned by women. And, in the work force, only 27 percent of all computer programmers and analysts are women (Lewis, 1985).

Social Expectations

Socialization
Research has shown that math anxiety and technophobia are learned responses - girls are not born hating mathematics (Fox, 1981). Such socialization begins at home. Females are socialized from the time they are very young to avoid risk taking - and in the culture of the United States mathematics or technology may be seen as risky business for females.
Within the home environment the treatment of male and female infants remains fairly stereotypic. For instance, girl babies are handled more delicately than are boys (Brauun & Linder, cited in Hensel, 1989). Even the toys given to boy and girl babies differ; from birth girl infants are discouraged from risk-taking, from exploring the world around them. Boys are given toys that encourage small motor skills and spatial visualization-necessary for later math success. Girls' toys often encourage relational or traditionally nurturing activities.

In child care settings, with infants and children between 13 months and two years, research shows that child care providers respond to the children based on their own sex role beliefs, and they use the child's gender to guide their responses (Fagot, Hagan, Leinback, Kronsberg, 1985). While there was no sex difference in the number of attempts infants made to communicate with the adults, the infant behaviors to which adults responded differed significantly. Adults were more likely to respond when girls used gestures or gentle touches or talked, and when boys forced attention through physical means or cried, whined, or screamed. When children are older and their behaviors more clearly defined, teachers apparently abandon the sex stereotype and begin to respond to the specific behavior of the child, but by this point the unconscious assignment of sex role stereotypes to the child is no longer necessary. For the most part, by the time they are three, children are performing well-rehearsed communicative activities that were developed before the child had an effective language system.

In another study that explored the dominant and submissive sex role behaviors in preschool children and their teachers, the patterns of male domination of conversation were emerging - a pattern modeled by the adults (Hendrick & Strange, 1989). The preschool teachers interrupted less when the boys were talking and they made no attempt to balance the larger number of male interruptions by encouraging girls to speak up or by recommending the boys allow the girls speaking time. As the researchers pointed out, these preschool girls were ". . .learning to know their place and what traditionally constitutes socially acceptable sex-role behavior. . .girls were learning to assume a less aggressive social role in conversation. It is quite possible since what they had to say was treated with less respect, they were also learning they were less important in the social scheme of things than were their male counterparts."

Family Expectations
Parent expectations of girls and boys differ significantly in terms of mathematics. This socialization process begins early and influences a girl's decision on whether or not to take specific math courses in high school. Researchers have found both, that it is expectations that influence course taking and that parents are more willing to invest greater sums in their sons' education. Such often unconscious perceptions help perpetuate the assumption that girls cannot excel in mathematics.