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Article: Boys and girls: equal but not the same.
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- December 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When Karen was in fourth grade, there were 12 boys and 13 girls in Mrs. Harris' math class. By the time she got to calculus in her senior year of high school, there were 12 boys and five girls. And the teacher was a man.
How does it figure that math is so male-dominated? Some say it's because boys have an inborn superiority in math. Others say it's because schools encourage boys more than girls to excel in math. The debate has been going on for years, and neither biological research nor the politics of sexual equality has settled the question.
Nature vs. Nurture
Math is not the only area in which people wonder about gender differences. ...