Gender and science education

The BBC reports that boys' and girls' differ in their attitude towards science. The article summarizes the findings of Professor Edgar Jenkins of the University of Leeds, namely a striking difference in the science topics that boys and girls find most interesting. Jenkins found that boys are most interested in space, destructive technologies, and explosive chemicals. Girls prefer biological topics, especially human health.

These findings aren't terribly surprising. But the conclusions that Jenkins draw from them are problematic. He insists that, "We have had a generation or more now of promoting gender equality but the differences exist." Well, yes, the differences exist. But the fact that there has been increased focus on gender equality in the past 30 years and there's still differences between boys and girls when it comes to science doesn't mean that any remaining differences are genetic or inherent. As I'm sure Jenkins would readily admit, there were cultural explanations for the apparent lack of girls' interest in science in prior generations (namely that girls were actively discouraged from pursuing science). Even if schools have been entirely successful in teaching science the same way to boys and girls, there are still artifacts of old policies that affect today's students. Most physicists, for example, are men. As a result, boys have clear role models for pursuing careers in physics. 50 years of promoting gender equality is hardly enough to eliminate the effects of nurture and settle on nature as the sole determinant of students' attitudes towards science.

I'm not arguing that any observed differences between boys and girls are culturally determined. Far from it. Rather, I'm just pointing out that it's practically impossible to dismiss culture with respect to such complicated phenomena. It's not as if you can raise children in the wilderness then ask them what kind of science they like. A healthy dose of skepticism in discussions like this is usually warranted.

More troubling than Jenkins's apparent essentialism is his accompanying policy recommendation. He suggests that "we should teach the two sexes separately for some of the time" and tailor lessons for each sex. The BBC story doesn't provide details, but I imagine he wants classes for boys to focus on astronomy and chemistry and classes for girls to emphasize biology and fitness. This is a problem for at least two reasons.

First, by naturalizing the observed differences between boys and girls, this segregation would likely intensify these differences. If boys are exposed to nothing but math, physics, and chemistry, it's hard to imagine them developing a keen interest in biology. Policy decisions based on essentialist ideas of gender almost always reinforce those preconceptions which, as discussed above, tend not to be entirely well-founded.

Second, teaching girls one type of science and boys another does nothing for the exceptions. Even if the typical girl is more likely to be interested in biology, there are bound to be female students who want to study astronomy. And just because most boys seem to be more interested in blowing things up than learning how to prevent STDs, there will be some male students who do want to learn about current treatments for cancer. Teaching to the preferences of the average student might make the average student happy, but it will only frustrate the outliers and exceptions.

A better solution would be to offer a wide range of classes that cover the interests of both boys and girls. If a chemistry class ends up with just one or two girls, so be it. Far better that than shoe-horning those two girls into a class covering material they don't care about.

What's interesting is that there have been some studies that suggest that single-sex education can be beneficial for both boys and girls. All-girl math classes, for instance, result in girls that like math more than their counterparts in mixed-gender classrooms. But, as far as I understand it, the content covered in single-sex classrooms doesn't differ all that much from the material taught in classes with boys and girls. Separating boys and girls and teaching them different things because you think they'll like their gender-specific material restricts students' choices and potential. Let kids decide what they want to study and they'll end up happier and smarter.