Session moderated by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge.
Each 30 minutepaperis followed by 10 minutes of discussion.
Preventing gender disparities in mathematics and promoting a more balanced representation of women and men in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are international concerns. These differences exist in favor of boys, yet from early childhood, boys and girls present similar or identical fundamental knowledge of mathematical concepts, number sense and space. In our recent work, we have explored the early emergence of the gender gap that appears as early as the first year of elementary school, after four months of schooling, in France, in favor of boys in mathematics. We refuted the idea that children slowly absorb, over time, an accumulating social bias according to which " girls are bad at math ". Instead, we show that they acquire it quickly and in the first school year. In a four-year longitudinal assessment of language and mathematics in all French pupils in CP and CE1 (around three million children), the gender gap in mathematics remains negligible at the start of school, but increases sharply from school entry with the same intensity, whatever the child's age month, instead of growing gradually over time. These results are repeated every year, and are barely modified by socio-economic status, school categories, average class performance in mathematics, level heterogeneity within the class, class gender ratio and the gender of the best pupil in the class. What's more, when the Covid epidemic led to school closures, the gender gap narrowed, allowing us to support the hypothesis that it's not at home that gaps are reinforced, but at school. Thus, schooling, rather than cultural immersion, triggers a gender gap in mathematics.
Physician, PhD in neuroscience and former advisor to the Minister of Health.
