Annotated Bibliography On Gender And Mastery

Gender and Mastery Orientation

Because girls are more mastery oriented, the shift to a more competitive environment may be detrimental to girls (Shim et al., 2008). Tang and Neber (2008) concluded that while academically gifted female chemistry students reported higher effort goal orientation, they used superficial cognitive strategies in learning science more frequently than boys, an issue mirrored in studies of gifted female students’ math abilities (Spelke, 2005; Gallagher, DeLisi, Holst, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, Morely, & Cahalan, 2000).

Social Variables and Gender Linnenbrink and Pintrch (2002b) argue that numerous social variables such as a sense of belonging, the endorsement of social responsibility goals, the desire to be accepted by peer

In her analysis of The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) data, Spelke (2005) concluded that male and female infants perceive and learn objects in highly convergent ways and that there is no evidence for a male advantage in perceiving, learning or reasoning about objects and their motions and mechanical interactions; infants, children, and adults are equally proficient at representing small exact and large approximate numbers; there are no sex differences favoring boys in arguing the quantifier system of language; males and females show equal performance in sensitivity to geometric relationships; males and females learned advanced mathematics at equal rates and with equal success; males and females show equal abilities to learn advanced, college level mathematics; and based on their ability to master new and challenging mathematical material over extended periods of time, college men and women show equal aptitude for math (p. 952). Webb, Lubinksi, and Benbow (2002) argue that intellectually talented men and women are procuring uniform proportions of advanced educational credentials but differ in the areas in which they pursue those

(2002) contend that equal opportunity may not necessarily result in parity of male-female representation across all areas of the educational spectrum due to differences in gender-based preferences. Males are more likely to earn degrees in inorganic sciences and engineering than females, and females earn more degrees in health and medicine (Benbow et al., 2000; Sadler et al., 2012). Lubinksi et al. (1992) argue that this difference is partially due to male students’ abilities but mostly because of their preferences. In fact, mathematically talented women tended to be more verbally talented than mathematically talented men; therefore women tend to gravitate toward opportunities that draw on their verbal skills (Webb et al., 2002). Regardless of sex, those mathematically talented students with math scores at least one standard deviation above their verbal scores were more likely to pursue math-science degrees than those with closer scores (Lubinksi et al., 2001). In the long term, mathematically talented males and females had similar occupational prestige scores and did not vary in career satisfaction or career success, but men had higher incomes and worked more hours, while women spent more time with their families (Benbow, Lubinski, Shea, & Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000; Webb et al.,