Girls Lead in Science Exam, but not in the United States

Is science any more valuable to boys than girls? Hannah Fairfield, author of a new New York Times article regarding scientific test results, believes that boys in the United States may place a higher emphasis on science based on society's impression that men should be working in scientific and engineering fields. The test was given to 15-year-olds in 65 countries. Fairfield continues to cite Christianne Corbett, co-author of a reported entitled “Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math,” which was published in 2010. Corbett expalins that gender roles tend to develop around age four, especially in regards to occupations. Little girls are playing 'house' and  acting like their mothers, while little boys are asked if they'd rather be a police officer or a fire fighter. Simply, girls are just less informed of their options from an early age, which can have an effect on them later in life. 

Surprisingly, most of the yellow dots on the plot below fall into the 'girls scoring higher than boys' category; those dots represent Middle Eastern countries. Fairfield explains that often in Middle Eastern cultures, scientific careers and higher learning are the only enablers for women to get a legitimate career. Jordan, for example, has an 8% gap between girls and boys, with girls scoring higher. It is surprising that in a country where men and women are supposed to be treated equally, even as children, such a divide could exist, which begs the question; how do we introduce more women to science? Sometimes equality in the workplace can bring in revolutionary ideas and, with some current world scientific problems, we could use all the help we can get.

Plot of Test Results

Original Article here