Virginia Mathematics Teacher Spring 2017

Math Girls Note from the Editor: This article is an opinion piece shared by a fellow mathematics teacher. It has not gone through the peer review process. If your are interested in contributing an article related to female empowerment in STEM, please respond to the call for manuscripts featured on page 36. The Threat of Stereotypes on Female Participation in STEM Vanessa Vakharia The concern as to why women are not en-

a deeper examination suggests that this does not simply happen by chance, but is instead tied to the gendered self-concept of certain girls and boys – namely those, affected most by an environment which reinforces gendered stereotypes relating to intelligence and mathematical ability. What is stereotype threat and how does it play out? Stereotype Threat is essentially the situa- tional predicament in which people feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group (Steele, 1997). Stereotype Threat is subtle, in that all that needs to be present is the threat of a stereotype regarding a specific group, in order for that group to become anxious about their performance, thus hindering their ability to per- form at their optimal level. In this context, the group in question would be ‘female’ and the asso- ciated stereotype would be that girls are generally bad at math. In one study, two groups of children aged 7-8 were given an identical math test. Prior to the test, the groups were asked to color a picture, one group given pictures containing stereotypical gendered imagery (a girl holding a doll, a boy holding a ball), while the second group was given a neutral image to color (a landscape). Both groups were then given identical math tests and as ex- pected, girls whose gender identity had been made salient (by focusing on images depicting stereo- typically gendered roles) underperformed com- pared to the girls in the group whose gender identi- ty had not been activated. Conversely, boys whose gender identity had been made salient performed better than the boys in the group whose identity had not been activated (Neuville et al, 2007). Other studies have confirmed the finding that gender identity activation leads to reduced

tering STEM fields at a rate proportional to their male counterparts has been steadily growing over the past few years, and that growth has been marked by a seemingly never-ending series of the- ories as to why this is the case. From a lack of fe- male role models to the masculinization of STEM related job prospects to the near-viral theory of women’s inevitable emotionally-driven tears (big thanks to Tim Hunt and Milo Yiannopoulos for this one), there is no shortage of reasons for why wom- en choose to enter any field other than STEM. All of these theories are important and all add a kalei- doscopic fragment to the ever changing lens with which we do and must continue to view the prob- lem. In this piece I would like to talk about one which I see enacted by my teenage students through my work every single day: it’s pervasive, it’s real, and it’s called “Stereotype Threat.” Rewind to one of my first teaching assign- ments ever: I was teaching in a Grade 10 math classroom and noticed a very strange phenomenon taking place. There was a group of girls in my class who scored almost perfectly on every evaluation, yet claimed definitively to be ‘bad at math.’ Con- versely, there was a group of boys in that very same classroom, who despite nearly failing ever evaluation, seemed to suffer no corresponding loss in confidence when it came to their innate mathe- matical ability. While upon first glance this type of behavior might be reminiscent of the plethora of evidence that generically suggests that girls simply have lower self-confidence than boys when it comes to math ability (Brush, 1980; Erlick & LeBold, 1975; Fennema & Sherman, 1976; Kamin- iski, Erickson, Ross & Bradfield, 1976; Robitaille, 1977; Sherman, 1980, as cited in Hollinger, 1985 ),

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 2

46