Smashing a stereotype

Monday, July 28, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

It has been a widely held belief that boys do better in math than girls. That belief translates into the makeup of the workforce, with far more men than women gaining employment in fields involving physics or engineering.

Consider that only two women have won Nobel Prizes for physics, the more recent in 1963. Also consider, as Las Vegas Sun reporter Charlotte Hsu wrote in May, that of the UNLV College of Engineering degrees awarded in 2007, only 37 of 208 went to women.

But a new study published Friday in the journal Science obliterated the boys-do-better stereotype by providing evidence that girls perform just as well in math as their male counterparts from second through 11th grades. The study financed by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency, should provide encouragement to girls who aspire to become physicists or engineers.

The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin professor Janet Hyde, said their findings were limited by the fact that most states do not test children for complex reasoning skills. We agree with their recommendation that math tests should be modified to measure those skills, because they are required to obtain advanced college degrees and occupations in highly technical fields.

Based on the study’s findings, though, there is no question that parents and teachers should not assume boys, on average, are better at math than girls. That is especially critical at a time when our nation desperately needs to produce more physicists and engineers to compete in the global economy.