Girls and Boys are Very Similar in their Ability to Learn Math

Written by Joyce Smith, BS. Study demonstrates that across all analysis, girls and boys showed significant gender similarities in math ability.

Limited evidence exists to support the claim that biological differences in mathematical aptitude between the sexes is the reason why more males than females pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) ¹.  While some studies on children and adults have shown gender differences in math performance, researchers have had great difficulty distinguishing between biological differences and differences due to social and cultural influences ^2-4.  According to behavioral studies there are no gender differences in math aptitude during early childhood nor are there any studies that use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect biological differences in the ways that boys and girls process math ^5-7 .

To address this lack of neurological evidence for gender differences Cantlon and colleagues ⁸ used  functional MRI to measure the  brain activity in 104 young children, 3-to 10-years old (55 girls, 49 boys). While they were lying in a magnetic resonance scanner, the children watched educational videos that included clips from Sesame Street, math topics such as counting and addition, as well as reading topics for comparison. Intersubject correlations were done by comparing each child to every other child. As well, each child was compared to every adult within a comparison group (25 women, 38 men).

Just as with adults, the children had increased activity in the brain area involved with counting, processing number words and performing addition and subtraction. Brain activity was found to be remarkably indistinguishable among both genders. In fact, when comparing child to child whole-brain scans it was evident that both boys and girls were equally engaged in watching the video and that the increased activity in the brain area involved with math processing did not vary with gender but was similar for all children. Researchers found that the patterns of neural activity within their brains reflected one heterogeneous group, rather than two distinct groups based on gender. Comparing the scans of children’s brains to those of the adults, who watched the same videos, revealed that the relationship between gender and math ability did not change across age. The final comparison was an administered standardized math test which found no difference in math aptitude between boys and girls.

Cantlon and team believe male dominance in the mathematics and STEM fields is due in part to the messages society gives to girls and young women as well as the difficulty of entering a field of study that is so male dominant.

These results are consistent with the ‘Gender Similarities Hypothesis’, which argues that boys and girls function similarly in most areas of cognition ⁹ and that based on a large United States representative sample ⁹, gender similarities in early childhood mathematics suggest that gender differences in STEM fields in adults are not derived from intrinsic differences in the brains of children, but are likely the byproduct of our environment. Cantlon and team, clearly validating this hypothesis, demonstrate that the neural functions underlying mathematical cognition are similar between genders and represent one heterogeneous population rather than two categorical groups.

Source:  Kersey, Alyssa J., Kelsey D. Csumitta, and Jessica F. Cantlon. “Gender similarities in the brain during mathematics development.” NPJ science of learning 4, no. 1 (2019): 1-7.

© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Click here to read the full text study.

Posted December 9, 2019.

Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from  the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.

References:

1. Levy J, Kimura D. Women, men and the sciences. The science of women in science. 2009:202-284.
2. Halpern DF, Benbow CP, Geary DC, Gur RC, Hyde JS, Gernsbacher MA. The science of sex differences in science and mathematics. Psychological science in the public interest. 2007;8(1):1-51.
3. Keller K, Menon V. Gender differences in the functional and structural neuroanatomy of mathematical cognition. Neuroimage. 2009;47(1):342-352.
4. Pletzer B. Sex differences in number processing: Differential systems for subtraction and multiplication were confirmed in men, but not in women. Scientific reports. 2016;6:39064.
5. Kersey AJ, Braham EJ, Csumitta KD, Libertus ME, Cantlon JF. No intrinsic gender differences in children’s earliest numerical abilities. NPJ science of learning. 2018;3(1):12.
6. Hutchison JE, Lyons IM, Ansari D. More Similar Than Different: Gender Differences in Children’s Basic Numerical Skills Are the Exception Not the Rule. Child development. 2019;90(1):e66-e79.
7. Jirout JJ, Newcombe NS. Building blocks for developing spatial skills: Evidence from a large, representative US sample. Psychological science. 2015;26(3):302-310.
8. Kersey AJ, Csumitta KD, Cantlon JF. Gender similarities in the brain during mathematics development. npj Science of Learning. 2019;4(1):1-7.
9. Hyde JS. The gender similarities hypothesis. American psychologist. 2005;60(6):581.