Here is the news release:


Review Highlights Flawed Logic Of Segregating Boys And Girls For Education Purposes, Based On Alleged Brain Differences

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/233040.php

This is the full text, but unfortunately I'm guessing that it can't be accessed if you don't have academic privileges. It's fascinating stuff, and a pretty thorough debunking. I'm not well-read enough to know what the author may or may not be leaving out, though.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c63105666nw1788k/fulltext.html

quoting the article:

"There is no scientific basis for teaching boys and girls separately, according to Lise Eliot from The Chicago Medical School. Her review reveals fundamental flaws in the arguments put forward by proponents of single-sex schools to justify the need of teaching teach boys and girls separately. Eliot shows that neuroscience has identified few reliable differences between boys' and girls' brains relevant to learning or education. Her work is published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles.

The first issue Eliot highlights is that single-sex school advocates often claim differences between boys' and girls' brains based on studies carried out in adult men and women. But such effects have rarely been found in children. It is also wrong to assume that children's brains operate like adults'. In reality, they are works-in-progress, and much of what influences adult neural processing is due to individuals' social and educational experience over their lifespan. Therefore the assumption that because gender differences in the brain are biological, they are necessarily fixed or 'hardwired' is incorrect."

<end of excerpt>

Single-sex education was around long before scientists were debating whether male and female brains differ in important ways. Some parents support single-sex education, especially for adolescents, because they think the presence of the opposite sex can be a distraction in the classroom. Others envision different roles for their boys and girls as adults, which leads them to educate them differently. I'm not saying those parents are right or wrong or that single-sex education is good or bad, just that it is as much a question about values as science.

Another reason is that being educated in a single-sex environment can, arguably, go some way to counter stereotypes prevalent in your society about what girls and boys "ought" to be interested in or good at. For example, it's often said that it's socially easier for a girl to be good at STEM subjects in an all-girls school than it is in a mixed school. In a single-sex school someone going against stereotype is being taught in a class with others who are also doing so (inherently challenging the stereotype), whereas in a mixed school, s/he may have to do so in a class which is mostly populated by the opposite sex and may find the stereotype reinforced rather than challenged. Some children find this no problem at all, others do find it an additional hurdle. Not saying this means single-sex education is good overall, but it's a consideration.

It's a lot more comfortable to schools, though, to be able to appeal to brain science to justify being single sex than to have to discuss touchy subjects like stereotypes and children being distracted by the presence of the opposite sex! Which is probably why they do it, and they'll probably carry on doing it...

Funny I never thought about single-sex education as being related to differences in male and female brain function. I see it as a way to counteract societal stereotypes. I'm not saying I'm a fan of single sex ed but can understand why some people might make this choice. I went to an all female high school and a co-ed university, the biggest difference I observed was how the sexes were treated by certain faculty.

In high school, we only had girls so girls could/had to do everything. We were socialized to take on leadership positions, play sports, receive academic awards, etc. No one treated our gender as a barrier.

As a computer science undergrad at an Ivy, I felt that gender did play a role with some faculty. I took a lot of math and some upper level engineering courses related to digital electronics. In the engineering classes in particular, I noticed female students were not called on by the all-male faculty. In group assignments, females weren't given the "hard engineering" roles but were assigned by one professor as "facilitators" or the "systems" person. During a group review, I remember the professor being shocked when I found a software error for a group of male students. Granted, this was about 25 years ago now. At the time, my female engineering-major friends said that this happened all of the time.

I totally understand the social/cultural argument, although I also feel that we should work harder to make coed education equal instead of giving up and retreating. I don't know if it's just my group of friends, but I DO know a lot of people who are big on "Boys and girls learn differently due to brain differences."

But how will you know when educational opportunities are equal? If you subscribe to the idea that male IQ scores are more variable, then you will expect to see males over-represented at the extremes. If you don't subscribe to that idea, then you might expect more equal numbers. If you don't even know what to expect, then you can't discern a bias.

You have to look carefully at the opportunities, rather than at the statistical outcomes. (This is essential anyway, because even if, e.g. you think that there's a statistical tendency for boys to be overrepresented in the PG population, you *still* want to be sure not to miss the PG girl.)

Generally this may be complex, e.g., an opportunity may be theoretically equally open to both genders but in practice one may be more dissuaded by e.g. material that appeals to stereotypes (e.g. if you set maths questions about cars and trains that very young girls have learned to think of as boy things, you tend to put the girls off maths too).

Sometimes it's blatant though. Example from my own childhood: I was at an all-girls school, and very into maths. However, I was never entered for a maths competition (well, not until the one in my final year that took place when I was ill) although later I found out that many had existed and that comparable boys schools used to enter the boys for them en masse. And then people wonder why the winners of these competitions are disproportionately male... (I know, the whole story isn't as simple as that, but that kind of thing is part of it.)

I think that girls and boys do think differently, but sometimes the "problem" with this is not the kids' differences, but the teachers' inability to think/explain things in more than one way. (The old "it's my way or it's wrong" issue.)
I say this from personal experience, as a student and a teacher. When I was an undergrad, majoring in physics there were 35 of us in the freshman class, 5 were females. We had to take a problem solving course, basically to be taught how to analyze and solve scientifically written word problems. Every problem set we turned in was graded by 1 of 2 prof's and then he met with you and discussed your work, how you did, what your errors were, how to improve, that sort of thing. Once I arrived for my discussion session to find 3 of the dept. profs there - all to discuss and analyze my way of thinking! (Talk about intimidating ). This ended up being the first of many discussions over my 4 yrs in college with the profs about the different approaches their female students took when solving problems, designing experiments, and completing labs. Through these conversations it became really clear that there was a definite difference between the way male and female students were approaching/solving and investigating physics. I was amazed and intrigued by all of this and began noticing how we interacted with each other and how the guys in my classes approached the problems and explained them versus how the females did.
It was similar in graduate school - the guys always thought differently than I did about almost all problems we had to do. It was only when I met my first female physicist and she actually understood where I was coming from and how I approached things did I begin to believe that there really wasn't anything wrong with me or my way of doing things.

Now, as a teacher, I see it all the time, whether I'm teaching middle school math or science or higher level physics. My male and female students explain themselves differently, often times quarreling with each other over a problem when they are actually saying the same thing, but can't see it from each others perspective.

I do not think that these differences mean that one is better than the other, and I do not have hard, empirical evidence to back this up, but I see the differences and see how those differences lead some teachers to react and act differently to boys and girls.

First, I think any female is capable of learning in the same methods as taught to males. Having taken engineering, a long time ago, I can support knute on some of the profs treating us differently. Though some didn't. I remember a prof singling me out and pushed me towards grad work in physics.

It is all individual. I am as much as a problem solver as my engineering brother and look at everyday solutions, since I have heard him say things I was thinking. But that is how my engineering father brought us up. I think too often, habits are just a factor of the parental influence and their attitude and for so long, girls were "not good in math and science" though we were expected to cook well...without being good at chemistry.

I had the same experience about 20 years ago. We did everything in the girls only school. But when we went to college and grad school it was all about stereotypes. I don't believe in different brain functions argument yet. I think single sex enviornment reduce the distractions in classrooms and provide same opportunities for both sexes.

The unisex schools get higher test and achievement scores, all things being equal. I think it comes down to reducing the distractions.

If you talk to social scientists who study gender differences (learning as well as other topics), they will point out that in most things, the variation within the categories is generally much greater than the between category difference. In other words, there differences between individual women (and between men) is much greater than the difference between women as a group and men as a group. We as a society focus in on the between category differences and use them to produce stereotypes. When, in actuality, girl's (or boys') learning styles cannot and should not be simplified to a "female" or "male" way of thinking.

I think same-sex schools work for girls for the reasons described above: less distraction and more opportunity to take on roles and activities (especially in math and science) that would might not seem socially possible for them in a co-ed institution.

More research supporting the idea that gender differences in math achievement are not due to biological factors:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-debunks-myths-gender-math.html

I was just coming here to post that! The greater male variability argument is really being pretty seriously debunked these days.

From study:




Probably not even at the high end - lot of both sexes at the very top.

http://amc.maa.org/amc8/2011/stats/2011-amc8stats.shtml

Male and female brains are different, as explained in the following article.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ
How Male and Female Brains Differ
Researchers reveal sex differences in the brain's form and function.

WebMD Feature
Recent studies highlight a long-held suspicion about the brains of males and females. They're not the same. So how does the brain of a female look and function differently from a male's brain, and what accounts for these differences?

Disparities Start Early in Life

Scientists now know that sex hormones begin to exert their influence during development of the fetus. A recent study by Israeli researchers that examined male and female brains found distinct differences in the developing fetus at just 26 weeks of pregnancy. The disparities could be seen when using an ultrasound scanner. The corpus callosum -- the bridge of nerve tissue that connects the right and left sides of the brain -- had a thicker measurement in female fetuses than in male fetuses.

Observations of adult brains show that this area may remain stronger in females. "Females seem to have language functioning in both sides of the brain," says Martha Bridge Denckla, PhD, a research scientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Consider these recent findings. Researchers, using brain imaging technology that captures blood flow to "working" parts of the brain, analyzed how men and women process language. All subjects listened to a novel. When males listened, only the left hemisphere of their brains was activated. The brains of female subjects, however, showed activity on both the left and right hemispheres.

This activity across both hemispheres of the brain may result in the strong language skills typically displayed by females. "If there's more area dedicated to a set of skills, it follows that the skills will be more refined," says David Geary, PhD, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri.

As a whole, girls outperform boys in the use of language and fine motor skills until puberty, notes Denckla. Boys also fall prey to learning disabilities more frequently than girls. "Clinics see a preponderance of boys with dyslexia," Denckla tells WebMD. ADHD also strikes more boys than girls. The symptoms displayed by girls and boys with ADHD differ, too. Girls with ADHD usually exhibit inattention, while affected boys are prone to lack of impulse control. But not all differences favor girls.

Boys generally demonstrate superiority over female peers in areas of the brain involved in math and geometry. These areas of the brain mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls, according to a recent study that measured brain development in more than 500 children. Researchers concluded that when it comes to math, the brain of a 12-year-old girl resembles that of an 8-year-old boy. Conversely, the same researchers found that areas of the brain involved in language and fine motor skills (such as handwriting) mature about six years earlier in girls than in boys.

So, do these sex differences even out over time?

Females and males maintain unique brain characteristics throughout life. Male brains, for instance, are about 10% larger than female brains. But bigger doesn't necessarily mean smarter.

Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing. Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter -- sometimes called 'thinking matter" -- than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains. That's not all. "The frontal area of the cortex and the temporal area of the cortex are more precisely organized in women, and are bigger in volume," Geary tells WebMD. This difference in form may explain a lasting functional advantage that females seem to have over males: dominant language skills.

<end of excerpt>

I think differences in male and female differences likely explain differences in average verbal and math abilities.

ETA: A review paper

The Science of Sex Differences in Science and Mathematics
by Diane F. Halpern, Camilla P. Benbow, David C. Geary, Ruben C. Gur, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Morton Ann Gernsbacher

is at http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/files/Halpernetal2007PsychScience.pdf

Yeah, a lot of that is highly in dispute, Bostonian, as I think you know. The science seems to be coalescing more strongly on the other side of the argument. If all this is biological, then why has there been a HUGE change in female math and science achievement in the last 50 years--a mere microbleep in evolutionary time?

Looking at http://amc.maa.org/amc8/2011/stats/statestatistics/_Overall/Grade_and_Gender_Average.pdf , there is still a male edge of about 1 question (out of 25) on average. It's not huge, but it is statistically significant, and it is found every year on the AMC 8 and other standardized math tests.

I find this topic really interesting. Recently (and unfortunately I didn't take note of where I found them) I came across a couple of different bits of information. I will not doubt use incorrect terminology out of ignorance so apologies in advance. The first was a TED talk by a neuroscientist who mentioned for various reasons, the vast majority of healthy brains they get to dissect and study are men's brains (because they're more likely to have fatal accidents when they're young and because women are more likely to donate their partner�s organs than men are)**. The second was a blog on a psychology journal website where the author was lamenting what he felt was an underlying political correctness in neuroscience where people were no longer looking for differences between men and women�s brains when he felt that there were differences and that to not study them was to the detriment of women's mental health.

Not long after I came across these two things a friend who is a psych lecturer recommended the book "Left Brain, Right Brain - Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience" by Sally Springer and Geor Deutsch (neuroscience being one of my many passing fads�) It is a summary of current research in brain science and from my quick search on it before I purchased it, it seemed to show that is well regarded. This book backs up part of Bostonian's post, which is that it appears women generally use both hemispheres in their thinking processes whereas men's brains are more lateralised. The authors emphasised that this is all that is really known at this point � no one really knows yet what this means (if anything) for intelligence, hemisphere asymmetry etc.

I absolutely consider myself a feminist and I certainly have had and understand concerns about using cognitive differences to make generalisations about gender, but for me what is relevant in all this is that this difference in brain function does appear to exist. By not exploring it we do women and girls a disservice. It means our concepts of learning are potentially based on what works for men, it means our intelligence tests are potentially assessing intelligence in ways that are not fully reflecting women�s potential (in sofar as they truly reflect anyone�s potential). Of course in addition to those kinds of concerns there is the potential for women to miss out on receiving the best possible treatment for mental illness and brain damage, among other things, if research is focused on men�s brains or on denying difference.

I certainly admit that my knowledge of this area is minimal and that I know I am linking potentially unrelated and in the case of the blog and the TED talk, potentially unverified, bits of information to make these assumptions. But even without those initial bits of information the fact that there is hemispheric asymmetry and that women do appear to access areas of their brains in ways that differ to men is cause for further exploration as far as I�m concerned (I certainly don�t mean to imply that those things I list above as possibilities are givens or are even likely - just seemingly possible). It seems to me that the world should (emphasis on SHOULD) be adult enough to understand that equal doesn�t equate to same � oh, scrap that, of course it�s not � otherwise we wouldn�t need this board!

** Edit - I should point out that I am aware that there are other ways of researching brains that don't require the person to be dead and would allow for both men and women to be studied - but I assume there are benefits in dissecting actual brains as well as functioning ones

Giftodd, you really need to read Lise Eliot's article with which ultramarina started the thread - the stuff you're talking about here is practically all among the "myths" of neuroscience that she debunks in it. It looks to me as though you don't need a subscription to see it:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/c63105666nw1788k/fulltext.html

I think the key point to be aware of is that even when there are statistically robust differences between male and female brains (and many of the best known ones are mythical) the intra-sex variation is in (practically? I know no exceptions) every case greater than the inter-sex variation, which makes the finding of very limited usefulness when it comes to dealing with individuals.

Saying differences are found "every year" is deceptive, since these differences have shrunk enormously. There has been a VAST change in girls' average and high-end scores in the last 50 years. How do you explain this? How do you explain the large variability between countries WRT girls' performance?

As I think I have said elsewhere, there MAY be some slight innate biological differences in male and female performance, but we are certainly not in a place yet to know what they are--it's clear that culture is still acting upon these results.

My inexpert opinion is that both positions here are right, based on my limited understanding of the malleability of the human brain. I would expect that differences of brain composition (grey vs white matter) would exist historically, because historically we didn't expect/allow women to think. And I would expect those differences to disappear in modern times, because our attitudes about women and thinking have radically changed... so if the brain is as malleable as research suggests, that composition should also change. And because that attitude shift is not yet fully complete, I would expect that stark differences in brain matter can still be noted in certain groups.

I don't see a conflict in the data from either side.

Let's have some fun with popular science!

10 Things Every Woman Should Know About a Man's Brain!

http://www.livescience.com/14422-10-facts-male-brains.html

10 Things Every Man Should Know About a Woman's Brain!

http://www.livescience.com/14421-human-brain-gender-differences.html

I know two of the boys on the list from TX and know their families. Those boys get far more prep and pushing from their parents than their sisters do. This easily explains the 1 point difference.

Another way to see this is if you look at the grade level where girl participation almost equals the boys, the difference shrinks to its lowest number - almost 1/2 of a question.

JonLaw, with all due respect, I really don't think there is any evidence whatsoever that women's brains have physically shrunk or gotten stupider or anything due to sexism and are now "catching up."

Again, I'm going to point to the fact that 50 years, or even 100 years, is a MICROBLEEP in evolutionary time. If we have seen big changes in girls' test scores over that time, we are NOT talking about evolution. We are talking about cultural change.

The brain is a very plastic organ and will change in response to the environment. Lock a very bright kid in a closet with dogs and they will come out "damaged" a few years later. Just google "feral child" to see just how plastic the human psyche is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya

IMHO, we have a very long way to go to educate our kids to the best of their abilities.

Oh yes, of course, individual brain development is very plastic. But that is not the same thing as saying that within 20 years, the female brain has been able to evolve so drastically such that while very high-scoring boys once outnumbered girls 20 to 1 on math tests, they now outnumber them only 3 to 1.

(Or maybe you were agreeing with me--sorry!)

Again, it goes back to environment.

The most productive intellectual of the last 100 years was John Von Neumann. I read his biography and he had a very interesting way of seeing and thinking about the world - he saw things in his mind with a combination of color, sounds, and pressure - in other words - his entire brain was in the act. Feynman also saw the world in this way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

on the subject, this is high on my to-read list:

http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gen..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323880159&sr=8-1

Hmm.

On the AMC test, for grade 8, the girls are almost the same in number as the boys and the average point difference is just 0.7. At the upper ends of the test, there are more boys than girls, so I imagine that a distribution of the results would show that the majority of the girls actually score better than a majority of the boys if the upper end of both sexes was removed from the sample.

Sorry--those numbers are from another study I have bookmarked--I am actually not familiar with the AMC stuff. I could dig it up in a bit.

Hi ColinsMum, thanks for reposting the link � I had seen it

The book I was referring to isn�t a popular science book, it�s an introductory neuroscience textbook. Ultimately it supports what you�re saying � that intra sex variation is greater than inter sex variation. However, while the authors� do reference the Shaywitz study on laterality mentioned in the articles you linked to, it also refers to a number of studies and literature reviews as its basis for the claim that it seems that there does seem to be at least preliminary evidence of sex differences in laterality, including a review of 266 different studies on laterality effects in males and females. Ultimately the authors� conclusion was that while there was not conclusive evidence that differences exist, �the frequency as well as the consistency of reports of sex differences in cerebral organization, however, lead us to accept their reality at least as a working hypothesis. The strength of the case, in our opinion, rests on the diversity of methodologies (clinical studies, behavioural research, neuroimgaging) that point to the same conclusion: females are less lateralised than males�. They go on to say �This consistency in the direction of asymmetries that are reported suggest that there are true sex differences that are small in magnitude and easily masked by individual variability or other factors that may not be controlled�. However the book is over 10 years old and perhaps the later studies referred to in the Springer articles put paid to those referred to in to the book.

In terms of buying in to myths, I don�t believe for a second that women are less capable than men in maths and science, I absolutely agree that social rather than biological causes have been a work in holding women back in these domains in the past. I don�t at all believe that woman are less intelligent than men. However, what is apparent to me from the small amount of reading I have done on the topic is just how little we know about the brain at all. My main point, which I suspect I mangled the delivery of, is that it does seems to me that if there is a possibility that there are differences in the way men and women�s brains work then ignoring or denying that is counterproductive to ensuring women have access the best opportunities in life. Difference isn�t a bad thing in and of itself, it is only a problem if it�s used to further someone�s ideological agenda.

I thought the article was saying that the female brain shrinks 4% during pregnancy and then returns to normal size after the baby is born.

That doesn't have anything to do with sexism, although it does have something to do with sex.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=851#comic

Here is the paper that I think the WebMD article is based on.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289611001206
Intelligence
Volume 40, Issue 1, January&#150;February 2012, Pages 60-68
Sex differences in brain volume are related to specific skills, not to
general intelligence
Miguel Burgaleta, Kevin Head, Juan �lvarez-Linera, Kenia Mart�nez,
Sergio Escorial, Richard Haier, Roberto Colom
Received 26 April 2011; revised 27 October 2011; Accepted 27 October
2011. Available online 29 November 2011.
Abstract
It has been proposed that males would show higher mean scores than
females in general intelligence (g) because (1) men have, on average,
larger brains than women, and (2) brain volume correlates with g. Here
we report a failure to support the conclusion derived from these
premises. High resolution MRIs were acquired in a sample of one
hundred healthy young participants for estimating total, gray, and
white matter volumes. Participants also completed an intelligence
battery &#150; comprising tests measuring abstract, verbal, and spatial
abilities &#150; that allowed the extraction of g scores. Results showed
consistent relations between sex differences in brain volumes and
non-g spatial and verbal skills but not for g.

Charles Murray's comments are at http://blog.american.com/2011/12/a-...nding-male-female-cognitive-differences/

On average, men have better spatial skills--this does seem to be the case and I won't argue it. However, a great deal of research shows that spatial skills can be easily improved through training. So were the differences due to innate ability or to boys' and men's greater exposure to spatial tasks, such as building with blocks and Lego and video games? I don't actually know if training can change amounts of gray and white matter.

Ah, well--that wasn't hard to find:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002669

"Recently, activation-dependant structural brain plasticity in humans has been demonstrated in adults after three months of training a visio-motor skill. Learning three-ball cascade juggling was associated with a transient and highly selective increase in brain gray matter in the occipito-temporal cortex comprising the motion sensitive area hMT/V5 bilaterally."

more user-friendly:

http://classic.the-scientist.com/news/display/55830/

Sounds right. Don't London cabbies grow to have ginormous geographic-mapping centers in their brains after years of practice winding through their city's streets? I seem to remember a threefold increase in size.

ETA: Hmm.

That's pretty wild about them cab drivers. It totally sounds like it makes sense.

You may find interesting the article

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/education/10math.html
Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds
By SARA RIMER
New York Times
October 10, 2008

The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

The study suggests that while many girls have exceptional talent in math � the talent to become top math researchers, scientists and engineers � they are rarely identified in the United States. A major reason, according to the study, is that American culture does not highly value talent in math, and so discourages girls � and boys, for that matter � from excelling in the field. The study will be published Friday in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

<end of excerpt>

The report being discussed is

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/10math_report.pdf
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Students with Exceptional Talent in Mathematical Problem Solving
by Titu Andreescu, Joseph A. Gallian, Jonathan M. Kane,
and Janet E. Mertz

I can't decide if I agree that American culture does not value talent in math. If not, what academic field DOES it value talent in? That said, my daughter, who is an excellent reader but also very good at math, did not have her math talent acknowledged till moving to her current school. The two top math students in her class are both girls.

The ability to throw, hit, or catch a ball on some type of field is what American culture values, apparently.

This presupposes that it values academic talent at all.

I think Isaac Asimov summed it up pretty well back in January of 1980: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Right--I agree. But if it does value any sort of academic talent, I think it values math and science talent, doesn't it? More so than say, talent in poetry or history!