There's new evidence that when it comes to mathematics, the sexes apparently do not begin school on an equal footing.
In the first long-term study of mathematically precocious young children, Nancy Robinson and her colleagues in the UW's Halbert Robinson Center for the Study of Capable Youth found significantly more boys than girls with very high levels of math talents. Even when the children were exposed to an enrichment program to foster their abilities, math-talented girls didn't catch up with their male counterparts in the first two years of school.
The two-year study involved 276 children discovered during preschool or kindergarten, all of whom scored at or above the 98th percentile on at least one of three screening tests. Although special efforts were made to enlist girls, 60 percent of those with qualifying scores were boys. And the top five percent of scores, using any of eight different measures, were virtually all earned by boys.
"We don't know how to explain this gender difference," says Robinson. "It was already there before formal schooling started. Perhaps boys' play activities involve more things like cars and blocks that you need to count. It is also known both from other studies and from our own observations that boys need more help in staying on task than girls do, so they get more attention."
The children in the study were randomly assigned to control or intervention groups. Youngsters in the control group received no special attention; those in the intervention group met in Saturday clubs for two and a half hours up to 28 times over two years. The clubs were designed to help the children see the world as a mathematical place and themselves as enthusiastic mathematicians.
"We hoped that the girls' skill levels, as they got experience and encouragement in math, would catch up," says Robinson. "That didn't happen. The very top scores tended to be boys', both before and after the enrichment program. But," she emphasizes, "don't forget that the girls in the study were also exceedingly good at math!"
The researchers also found that children with an early aptitude and interest in math maintained their momentum in school. "Children who have advanced math reasoning skills when they start school are likely to remain ahead compared to other children over the years we measured," says Robinson.