女生不擅長(zhǎng)數(shù)學(xué)？原因可能是閱讀能力太強(qiáng)

Are good readers more likely to give up on maths?

女生不擅長(zhǎng)數(shù)學(xué)?原因可能是閱讀能力太強(qiáng)

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The gender gap in maths-related subjects is proving stubbornly persistent. In almost all countries, far fewer women than men choose to pursue potentially lucrative careers in maths, physics, engineering and computer science. While initiatives such as providing girls with mentors and role models, and taking steps to tackle stereotypes and unconscious gender biases, can be helpful, their effects are often small. At the current rate of change, women are likely to remain outnumbered in maths-related fields for decades to come.

與數(shù)學(xué)相關(guān)的學(xué)科一直頑固存在著性別差距。在幾乎所有國(guó)家，選擇數(shù)學(xué)、物理、工程和計(jì)算機(jī)這些職業(yè)前途很好的專業(yè)的女性遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)少于男性。盡管為女孩提供導(dǎo)師和榜樣、采取措施消除刻板印象和無(wú)意識(shí)的性別偏見(jiàn)等舉措可能有所幫助，但影響往往很小。按照目前的變化速度，未來(lái)幾十年里，女性在數(shù)理化相關(guān)領(lǐng)域的人數(shù)可能仍將處于劣勢(shì)。

It’s not that girls and women are bad at maths. While boys do tend to perform better than girls in maths tests, the average gender difference is small. In the UK in 2019, for example, 39% of 18-year-old girls who studied maths at A-level achieved an A or A*, compared to 42% of boys. For A-level physics, 29% of girls achieved the top two grades, compared to 28% of boys. But in both subjects, boys heavily outnumbered girls – by more than 3:1 in the case of physics. So why are so many girls turning their backs on these subjects?

這并不是說(shuō)女孩和女性不擅長(zhǎng)數(shù)學(xué)，數(shù)理化成績(jī)不好。雖然男孩在數(shù)學(xué)考試中往往比女孩表現(xiàn)得較好，但平均性別差異很小。例如，2019年英國(guó)A-level考試，學(xué)習(xí)數(shù)學(xué)的18歲女孩有39%的人獲得了A或A*的成績(jī)，而男孩為42%，略高一點(diǎn)。在A-level物理科考試中，29%的女生取得了前兩個(gè)等級(jí)的高分，而男生只有28%。但選學(xué)這兩門科目的男生人數(shù)都遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)女生，在物理上，男女比例超過(guò)了3:1。那么，為什么有那么多的女孩對(duì)物理數(shù)學(xué)不感興趣呢?

A study published recently in the journal PNAS suggests that the answer may in fact lie in male-female differences in academic ability, but the ability in question is reading, not maths. Studies have consistently shown that girls and women outperform their male counterparts in reading and writing. They may also be better at acquiring foreign languages.

最近發(fā)表在《美國(guó)國(guó)家科學(xué)院院刊》(PNAS)上的一項(xiàng)研究表明，問(wèn)題的答案實(shí)際上可能在于男女在學(xué)術(shù)能力上的差異，但這項(xiàng)存在性別差異的學(xué)術(shù)能力是語(yǔ)言閱讀能力，而非數(shù)學(xué)能力。研究一直表明，女孩和女性在語(yǔ)文閱讀和寫(xiě)作方面要優(yōu)于男性。女性學(xué)習(xí)掌握外語(yǔ)的能力也可能較強(qiáng)。

Thomas Breda, at the Paris School of Economics, and Clotilde Napp, at Paris Dauphine University, wondered whether this male-female difference in reading could help explain the gender gap in STEM careers. Could it be that girls are not being pushed out of maths, so much as being pulled into fields that allow them to use their superior language skills?

巴黎經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)院(Paris School of Economics)的學(xué)者托馬斯•布雷達(dá)(Thomas Breda)和巴黎多芬大學(xué)(Paris Dauphine University)的克洛蒂爾德•納普(Clotilde Napp)想知道，男女在閱讀方面的差異是否能夠用來(lái)解釋理工科(STEM)職業(yè)領(lǐng)域中的性別差異。涉獵數(shù)學(xué)的女性較少，是否并非因?yàn)榕詳?shù)學(xué)才能不行，而是因語(yǔ)言技能比男性要出色?

‘Consider relative strengths instead of absolute ability’

“考慮相對(duì)優(yōu)勢(shì)而不是絕對(duì)能力”

Every three years, hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds in more than 60 countries take part in the PISA study, run by the OECD. Students complete tests in maths, reading and science, and answer questions about their future career intentions. When Breda and Napp looked at the data from PISA 2012, they realised they were on to something.

每三年一次，有60多個(gè)國(guó)家數(shù)十萬(wàn)15歲青少年參加由聯(lián)合國(guó)經(jīng)合組織(OECD)舉辦的國(guó)際學(xué)生能力評(píng)估測(cè)試(PISA)。這些學(xué)生接受數(shù)學(xué)、閱讀和科學(xué)的測(cè)試，并回答有關(guān)他們未來(lái)職業(yè)意向的問(wèn)題。當(dāng)布雷達(dá)和納普看到2012年的PISA 的測(cè)試數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，他們意識(shí)到他們發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些東西。

“There were small gender gaps in maths performance at 15 years old, but these gaps were too small to explain the huge gender segregation in STEM,” says Breda. But for reading, the tables were turned; the girls were much better than the boys. As a result, when a boy and a girl had similar scores in maths, the girl usually had an even better score in reading.

布雷達(dá)說(shuō)，“15歲學(xué)生在數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)上男女生差別很小，由于差別太小，不足以解釋為何在后來(lái)理工科職業(yè)領(lǐng)域方面性別差異會(huì)那么大。”但當(dāng)他們查看語(yǔ)文閱讀成績(jī)數(shù)據(jù)，則發(fā)現(xiàn)情況逆轉(zhuǎn)，女生成績(jī)比男生要好得多。結(jié)果是，如果一個(gè)男孩和一個(gè)女孩的數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)相近，這位女孩通常在語(yǔ)文閱讀分?jǐn)?shù)上比這位男孩要高一些。

When Breda and Napp compared each student’s scores in reading and maths, they found that this ‘difference score’ accurately predicted how likely that student was to plan to pursue further studies in maths. The greater a student’s advantage in reading, the less likely they were to plan a career in maths, even when their maths score was also high. Notably, this was true for both boys and girls. “Nothing is gender specific,” says Breda. “That’s what makes these results interesting. You can explain much of the difference between boys and girls [in career choices] with the difference between their grades in maths and reading.”

布雷達(dá)和納普比較了每個(gè)學(xué)生在閱讀和數(shù)學(xué)方面的分?jǐn)?shù)后發(fā)現(xiàn)，這個(gè)“差異分?jǐn)?shù)”能準(zhǔn)確預(yù)測(cè)某位學(xué)生打算繼續(xù)學(xué)習(xí)數(shù)學(xué)的可能性有多大。如果學(xué)生在閱讀方面的優(yōu)勢(shì)越大，他們就越不可能在數(shù)學(xué)方面規(guī)劃自己的職業(yè)生涯，即使他們的數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)也很高。值得注意的是，男孩和女孩都是如此。布雷達(dá)說(shuō)，“沒(méi)有什么是性別特定的。這就是讓結(jié)果顯得有趣的原因。你可以用男孩和女孩在數(shù)學(xué)和閱讀方面的成績(jī)差異來(lái)解釋后來(lái)他們職業(yè)選擇上的差異。”

Other experts who have examined the shortfall of women in the physical sciences agree that this is a plausible explanation for the observed occupational trends. “It makes a lot of sense,” says Sarah Cattan, associate director and head of the Education and Skills sector at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. “It shows that what matters most when boys and girls choose their field of study is not how good they are in maths or in reading, but how good they are in maths relative to reading. So this is really a story about comparative advantage rather than absolute advantage.”

研究女性比較少涉獵自然科學(xué)領(lǐng)域的其他一些專家對(duì)此解釋表示認(rèn)同，認(rèn)為是對(duì)人們所觀察到的職業(yè)性別趨勢(shì)的一種合理解釋。倫敦財(cái)政研究所(Institute for Fiscal Studies)副主任、教育和技能部門主管莎拉•卡坦(Sarah Cattan)說(shuō)，“這很有道理。他們的研究說(shuō)明，男生和女生選擇自己的研究領(lǐng)域時(shí)，最重要的不是他們?cè)跀?shù)學(xué)或閱讀方面有多好，而是他們自己的數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)與閱讀成績(jī)相比是較好還是較差。所以這是一個(gè)關(guān)于比較優(yōu)勢(shì)而不是絕對(duì)優(yōu)勢(shì)的故事。”

Lise Eliot, professor of neuroscience at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago, agrees. “It makes sense, and prior research supports, that in a competitive academic environment, students would consider their relative strengths as opposed to their absolute math ability when making career decisions.”

芝加哥羅莎琳富蘭克林醫(yī)學(xué)與科學(xué)大學(xué)的神經(jīng)科學(xué)教授麗絲?艾略特(Lise Eliot)也表示贊同說(shuō)，“在競(jìng)爭(zhēng)激烈的學(xué)術(shù)環(huán)境中，學(xué)生在做職業(yè)決定時(shí)，會(huì)考慮自己的相對(duì)優(yōu)勢(shì)，而不是絕對(duì)的數(shù)學(xué)能力，這是有道理的，而且之前的研究也支持這一點(diǎn)。”

How you perceive your abilities matters

如何看待自己的能力很重要

However, she adds that test scores are probably not the only factors on which the students are basing their choices. “Such decisions are always made in a social context that includes inter-student competition and gender role conformity. How do boys who are good at maths but not so good at reading project their prowess in the math classroom, for example? And are ‘relative strengths’ reinforced by teacher bias?”

不過(guò)她補(bǔ)充說(shuō)，考試分?jǐn)?shù)可能不是學(xué)生做出選擇的唯一因素。“職業(yè)的選擇通常有其社會(huì)背景，包括學(xué)生間的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)和性別角色的社會(huì)一致性認(rèn)定。例如，數(shù)學(xué)好但閱讀不好的男孩如何在數(shù)學(xué)課堂上展示他們的才能?老師的偏見(jiàn)是否強(qiáng)化了這種‘相對(duì)優(yōu)勢(shì)’?”

Parents and teachers may also treat boys and girls differently, often without realising it, because of the ingrained stereotype that reading is for girls and maths is for boys. One study showed that primary school teachers overestimated the performance of boys in maths and science but underestimated that of girls, for example, while findings of another suggested that parents may read more to their preschool daughters.

家長(zhǎng)和老師對(duì)待男生和女生的態(tài)度也不一樣，他們往往沒(méi)有意識(shí)到這一點(diǎn)，因?yàn)橛幸环N根深蒂固的成見(jiàn)，認(rèn)為閱讀是女孩的事，數(shù)學(xué)是男孩的事。例如，一項(xiàng)研究表明，小學(xué)教師高估了男孩在數(shù)學(xué)和科學(xué)方面的表現(xiàn)，但低估了女孩的數(shù)理化表現(xiàn)，而另一項(xiàng)研究表明，父母可能會(huì)給學(xué)齡前的女兒讀較多的書(shū)。

Whether there are also innate differences in male and female brains that predispose boys and girls to acquiring different skill sets is controversial. In any case, differential socialisation of boys and girls begins at a young age, and can influence how individuals perceive their own abilities and how much they invest in different subjects. “If you take girls and boys that perform similarly in maths, the girls will be much more likely than the boys to think that they perform poorly,” says Breda. This is partly because they have internalised the stereotype that maths is not for them, but also because we all judge our ability in maths by comparing it to our ability in reading, he adds.

男性和女性的大腦是否也存在先天差異，使得男孩和女孩會(huì)比較偏向于不同的技能，這是有爭(zhēng)議的問(wèn)題。無(wú)論如何，男孩和女孩的社會(huì)角色分化在他們年齡很小的時(shí)候就已開(kāi)始，這可能會(huì)影響到他們個(gè)人如何看待自己的能力，以及他們決定在不同學(xué)科上投入多少努力。布雷達(dá)說(shuō)，“如果把數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)相似的女孩和男孩放在一起，女孩會(huì)比男孩更有可能認(rèn)為她們數(shù)學(xué)成績(jī)不好。”他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)，部分原因是女孩已經(jīng)將數(shù)學(xué)不適合女性的刻板偏見(jiàn)內(nèi)化到自己意識(shí)中，另一個(gè)原因是我們?cè)u(píng)判自己的數(shù)學(xué)能力，是與自己閱讀能力作比較而言。"

None of this means that we should stop efforts to counter stereotypes about girls’ aptitude for maths and science versus reading. But it does suggest that much of the impact of these stereotypes occurs not at the point at which girls choose a career, but many years earlier. By encouraging girls to engage more in reading than in maths, stereotypes help generate the superior reading skills that will later go on to drive the girls’ career choices. This may also explain why initiatives targeting adolescent girls and women have had relatively limited success in increasing participation in maths-based careers: they may simply be too late.

盡管如此，并不是說(shuō)我們應(yīng)該停止努力去改變認(rèn)為女孩數(shù)理化領(lǐng)域天賦低而語(yǔ)言閱讀能力高這樣的刻板印象。但這也確實(shí)表明，這些根深蒂固的性別偏見(jiàn)對(duì)女性的很大影響不是發(fā)生在她選擇職業(yè)的時(shí)刻，而是多年前已出現(xiàn)。這種偏見(jiàn)從幼年開(kāi)始就鼓勵(lì)女孩多語(yǔ)言閱讀而少鼓勵(lì)她們發(fā)展數(shù)學(xué)興趣，因而培養(yǎng)出女孩優(yōu)秀的語(yǔ)言閱讀技能，而這些技能隨后將推動(dòng)女孩作出自己的職業(yè)選擇。這也可以解釋為什么針對(duì)青少年女子和婦女的數(shù)理化職業(yè)訓(xùn)練計(jì)劃收效相對(duì)有限，因?yàn)樗齻兊臄?shù)學(xué)興趣培養(yǎng)可能起步已太遲了。

Instead, closing the gender gap in maths and the physical sciences may actually depend more on reducing boys’ comparative disadvantage in reading.

相反，要縮小數(shù)理化科學(xué)領(lǐng)域的性別差距，或許還必須采取措施降低男孩在語(yǔ)言學(xué)習(xí)方面的相對(duì)劣勢(shì)。

Make boys better readers

讓男孩成為較好的閱讀者

David Geary, a cognitive developmental psychologist at the University of Missouri, says that this would also have broader benefits for society. “If you look at the students that are poorly educated, it’s mostly boys, and mostly in reading and writing.” Failing to tackle this could lead to many boys, especially from low-income families, being left “under-employed or unemployable”. Moreover, he says, there can be a tendency to view gender gaps in which men are the minority as somehow less of a concern than those where women are outnumbered. “The whole thing is disingenuous in the sense that no-one talks about the gap in veterinary medicine, for example, which is more than 80% women now.”

密蘇里大學(xué)的認(rèn)知發(fā)展心理學(xué)家戴維•吉爾里(David Geary)表示，幫助男孩的語(yǔ)言閱讀能力對(duì)社會(huì)也大有好處，“如果你看看那些教育程度很低的學(xué)生，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他們大多是男孩，而且大多是表現(xiàn)在閱讀和寫(xiě)作方面。”如果不能解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題，可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致很多男孩，尤其是來(lái)自低收入家庭的男孩，“失業(yè)或半失業(yè)”。此外，他說(shuō)，社會(huì)可能傾向于認(rèn)為，與女性人數(shù)少的領(lǐng)域相比，男性占少數(shù)的性別差異不足以令人擔(dān)心。“但這不是真實(shí)的，例如，沒(méi)有人談?wù)摣F醫(yī)學(xué)界從業(yè)者的性別差距，現(xiàn)在超過(guò)80%的獸醫(yī)是女性。”

Eliot is confident that the reading gap can be reduced, saying it’s smaller among children from more educated households, which provide home instruction and likely value reading and writing more highly. “That suggests that gender reading and writing gaps are as close-able as the gender gap in math, with the right educational interventions,” she says.

艾略特相信，閱讀差距是可以縮小的。他說(shuō)，在受教育程度較高的家庭中，孩子們的閱讀差距較小，因?yàn)榧彝ソ逃⒅睾⒆拥淖x寫(xiě)能力。她說(shuō)，“這說(shuō)明，只要采取正確的教育干預(yù)措施，男孩女孩在語(yǔ)文閱讀和寫(xiě)作方面的差距與在數(shù)學(xué)方面的性別差距一樣可以縮小。”

Raising the status of reading and associated career paths would also be good news for girls and women. “Most of these debates are often presented from a male-centred point of view,” notes Breda. “We say: ‘We should push girls to do science. Girls should be more like boys and women should be more like men.’ But that’s not a good way to think of it, it’s already biased.”

提升語(yǔ)文閱讀的地位和相關(guān)的職業(yè)對(duì)女孩和婦女來(lái)說(shuō)也是個(gè)好消息。布雷達(dá)指出，“有關(guān)的爭(zhēng)論大多出自于男性為中心的觀念。因此我們常這樣說(shuō)， 我們應(yīng)該鼓勵(lì)女孩投身科學(xué)。女孩應(yīng)該更像男孩，女人應(yīng)該更像男人。但這不是一個(gè)好的思考方式，這本身就是偏見(jiàn)。”

Ensuring that boys and girls acquire a solid foundation in both maths and reading, and that both skill sets are given equal status, as well as continuing efforts to remove gender stereotypes will all be important for ensuring that all individuals have as many options open to them as possible. Whether eliminating these differences will in fact remove differences in male-female subject choices, or whether other differences will emerge, remains to be seen.

確保男孩和女孩在數(shù)學(xué)和語(yǔ)文閱讀兩方面都有堅(jiān)實(shí)的基礎(chǔ)，文理兩種技能都得到平等對(duì)待，并繼續(xù)努力消除性別成見(jiàn)，是為了確保所有人，無(wú)論男女，都有盡可能多的人生選擇。但消除學(xué)科技能的性別差異是否真的能夠消除男女在文科和理工科學(xué)業(yè)和職業(yè)選擇上的差異，或是否將因此出現(xiàn)其他新的差異?這個(gè)問(wèn)題尚有待于研究。

“Do we want to swap biologists for computer programmers?” says Geary. “Maybe, maybe not. But it s up to the individual to make that choice.”

吉爾里說(shuō)，“我們是想讓生物學(xué)家改行做計(jì)算機(jī)程序員嗎? 也許是，也許不是。但這取決于每個(gè)人自己的選擇。”

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