Girls may learn math anxiety from female teachers

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even though the gap has narrowed, women still trail men in some areas of math achievement. And researchers think they may know part of the answer.

By: The Associated Press | WNCT
Published: January 25, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even though the gap has narrowed, women still trail men in some areas of math achievement. And researchers think they may know part of the answer.
They've found evidence that when female elementary school teachers are concerned about their own math skills, they pass that along to the little girls they teach.
According to the researchers, young students tend to model themselves after adults of the same sex. So, if they have a female teacher who is anxious about math, that could reinforce the stereotype that boys are better at math than girls.
The researchers studied 52 boys and 65 girls in classes taught by 17 different teachers -- all women.
They found that student math ability wasn't related to teacher math anxiety at the start of the school year. But by the end of the year, if teachers were anxious about their own math skills, their female students were more likely to agree that "boys are good at math and girls are good at reading."
The research appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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