By Anna Cristina D’Addio, Chief of Thematic Research, GEM Report
Mathematical capability and knowledge are critical to developing STEM skills and working in STEM fields. However, the 2024 Gender Report contained the estimate that one in five people feel anxious about mathematics with anxiety levels higher among girls, even when they perform well. In all participating education systems in the 2019 TIMSS, except Bahrain and Egypt, boys reported being significantly more confident in mathematics than girls. Why?
As part of the 2022 PISA survey, an index of mathematics anxiety was developed. Three Arab countries (Jordan, the State of Palestine and Saudi Arabia) and Cambodia were the only ones without a gender gap. The largest absolute gender gaps in anxiety were reported in Denmark, France, Germany and Norway. In France, a longitudinal survey of Children, Elfe, which is following 18,000 children born in 2011 for 20 years, found that girls are as good at calculations as boys up to grade 1, but gaps emerge between ages 5 and 6 and worsen thereafter.
Girls’ mathematics anxiety impacts on their mathematics score. At least a quarter of the total variation in mathematics performance across countries could be explained by the differences in overall mathematics anxiety in each country. Conversely, a study based on PISA data from an earlier round found a positive relationship between intending to pursue mathematics and mathematics performance, which was stronger among boys than among girls.
Mathematics anxiety influences subject choices.
Boys’ and girls’ educational trajectories diverge at around the age when they start deciding about their careers. This leads to women being considerably less likely to choose STEM fields. UIS data from 2018–23 shows that women only make up 35% of STEM graduates, the same share as a decade earlier. In 12 out of 122 countries, at most one in four graduates were female. At the opposite end, however, there were nine countries where the majority of STEM graduates were female, notably Arab States, such as the Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia. It is notable that high shares of female STEM graduates in Arab countries coincide with lower mathematics anxiety.
Gender and social identities and stereotypes matter.
More attention needs to be dedicated to women’s confidence and career development in tertiary STEM education and to overcoming the challenges to self-efficacy resulting from stereotyping and discrimination. In the United Kingdom, the 2019 Engineering Board Monitor showed that girls outperform boys in most STEM subjects in secondary school and yet still had low self-belief in their ability to do well in STEM.
Analysis of China Education Panel Survey data showed that more than 5 in 10 students and 4 in 10 parents agreed that boys were better at mathematics than girls. Boys who agreed with the statement that boys are better at mathematics had significantly higher scores on the mathematics test than their male peers who disagreed, while girls who agreed with this statement scored worse than their female peers who disagreed – suggesting a negative and inhibitory influence of such perceptions on achievement.
A different example of this is shown from France where children had to memorize a geometric figure and then redo it. One group was told it was a geometry test and the other was told it was a drawing test. Girls who thought they were taking a drawing test performed significantly better than those who thought they were taking a geometry test.
Gender stereotypes about STEM studies and professions are generated and perpetuated at home and in school. If girls and young women are more likely to suffer from mathematics anxiety than men, mothers may also be more anxious than fathers and more likely to communicate this to their children, particularly daughters.
A lack of self-belief in terms of mathematics and science aptitude limits girls’ and women’s STEM aspirations, much more than their performance. A survey of more than 2,000 girls aged 15 to 19 in the Asia-Pacific region suggested that only 12% continued to study STEM subjects even though more than 50% were considering them when they were younger. The decisions were taken because of perceptions of gender bias, subject difficulty and lack of support from parents and teachers.
A second data set from China with lower secondary school students showed equally revealing results. Before a mathematics test was administered, half of the students watched a video showing statistics that suggested men performed better than women in mathematics and were more likely to be in the top percentile of performance. The other half watched a video that never mentioned gender differences. Women in the first group did much worse than girls in the second group, implying the power of stereotypical influences.
Teacher and textbook biases can negatively affect girls’ aspirations
Female teachers can act as role models just as gender norms and stereotypes embedded in curricula and textbooks can also influence girls’ choices of what to study and what careers to pursue. One study found that teachers with subject-specific qualifications had a positive impact on test scores, and such impact was even higher for disadvantaged students and female students, while effects were even larger with a female teacher. The positive effects on student performance in science was roughly equivalent to an increase in weekly instruction time by two hours. One fifth of the effect was attributed to teacher confidence.
Teachers may not always have a positive influence, however. In Latin America, 8% to 20% of maths teachers reported believing that their subject is easier for boys. The latest OECD PISA 2022 found, for example, that male students reported greater teacher support than female and gender-diverse students. Moreover, learners in girls’ schools reported significantly lower teacher support than learners in co-educational or boys’ schools.
Teachers may also harbour gender stereotypes which affect girls’ self-efficacy and their choices. Teachers’ biases in favour of boys in science classes in Greece negatively affected the scores of girls. In Italy, female students scored worse on standardized tests when their mathematics teachers held strong implicit gender stereotypes. Studies in France and Israel found that teacher biases in favour of boys affected the performance of boys and girls on tests. Data from the Young Lives studies from 205 schools across two states in India suggest that when they are taught by a male teacher with stereotypical beliefs, girls are more likely to develop a negative attitude towards mathematics. A similar finding emerged from a study of grade 10 students in rural Limpopo, South Africa.
Countries are trying to reduce gender divides
Globally, 68% of the 211 education systems reviewed as part of the PEER country profiles for the 2023 GEM Report have policies in place to support STEM education, although only half of these policies specifically support girls and women.
Many sub-Saharan African countries have such a focus, for example, including Rwanda (for example Girls in ICT and We Code) and Kenya (for example through ICT and STEM bootcamps). Efforts to bridge the large gender divide are also underway in other regions. For example in In India, the Department of Science and Technology implements the Women in Science and Engineering-KIRAN (WISE-KIRAN) programme to enhance female participation. During its G20 presidency, India launched the TechEquity platform to empower women with digital literacy skills. The STEM Stars campaign promotes science and technology education with a focus on training rural and marginalized women.
The roots of girls’ anxiety are multi-layered as this blog shows, requiring a multi-layered response in return. Communication with parents, training with teachers, reviews of teaching and learning materials, and other innovative programmes such as coding programmes, women empowerment centres or other could make a difference. Girls have no need to be anxious about mathematics. A proactive and consistent approach could help them overcome their concerns and fulfil their clear potential to pursue STEM subjects and careers later in life.