(October 11, 2010) The
mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are
substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the
current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin.
One portion of the new study
looked systematically at 242 articles that assessed the math skills of
1,286,350 people, says chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's
studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
These studies, all published in
English between 1990 and 2007, looked at people from grade school to college
and beyond. A second portion of the new study examined the results of several
large, long-term scientific studies, including the National Assessment of
Educational Progress.