Study Finds No Math Gap for Girls

A major study published in Science magazine concludes girls do just as well as boys on math tests. There's been widespread concern, and fierce debate, over how few young women pursue higher degrees and professional work in math and science. This study, which looked at the scores of seven million students on standardized tests, found there's no difference between girls and boys in math test scores. The study authors do warn, however, that neither boys nor girls are getting enough challenging questions on standardized tests.

Our opinion research has found the attitudes of boys and girls are remarkably similar on this as well. Fairly large numbers of high school students, about four in 10, say they'd be "really unhappy" in a career that required a lot of math and science. But girls are no more likely to say this than boys. Boys and girls are also equally confident in their skills, with two-thirds of both groups saying they've "learned a lot" when it comes to doing math.

Complacency may be the real problem here -- American students generally get mediocre scores on international comparisons of math ability, but most parents (57 percent) say their child is learning enough math and science. In fact, parents' concern about this has actually fallen over the past decade. Our public engagement staff is part of a major initiative to get parents talking about this issue.