Posted by Lindenblüte on October 25, 2006, at 17:18:04
In reply to Weird reaction to comment on my learning style, posted by Racer on October 18, 2006, at 18:00:21
What are these learning styles?
What does formalized vs. intuitive mean?
Your inner feminist is right to be offended.
There is very little empirical support for an intrinsic, biological factor that makes boys score better (on average) than girls on tests of mathematics and "hard science".
Lacking evidence for innate advantage, these gender differences are, for the most part propagated by parents, teachers, professors and the like who treat children differently, depending on whether they are identified as a boy or a girl.
When our society decides that it's a fine thing for a woman to excel at physics, and when women in academia decide that the current system for granting tenure is biased against women who (gasp!) decide to have children, perhaps your inner feminist won't be so riled.
Read about Claude Steele's work on "stereotype threat" for more evidence on how a mere reminder that a stereotype exists for a group you identify with (be that African-American, White, Asian, Women, Korean... etc) can impact personal performance on skills as diverse as basketball, SAT math exams etc...). Even on skills where pretests had found no difference between groups who are briefed ahead of time "this is a math test that has been used extensively in college populations. Unlike some math tests, this exam shows no difference in performance for men or women..."
geez. was your instructor trying to compliment you? As if being a woman and being "good at math" are somehow very nearly mutually exclusive (as mediated by this variable called "learning style"?!? huh?
what's up with the fanny?
-Li
hmm.
poster:Lindenblüte
thread:695854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061012/msgs/697701.html