Young children are more inclined to believe incorrect math information from men than accurate information from women, according to a Rutgers University–New Brunswick study published in the journal Developmental Science. The findings suggest that early gender stereotypes can influence learning itself, not just attitudes toward intelligence as previously thought.
For the youngest learners, “brilliance bias” is a well-documented, if lamentable, feature of early childhood. Girls as young as 6 associate boys with greater intellect, studies show. But gender bias doesn’t only shape what children believe about their own abilities. The new Rutgers study suggests it also may influence how children learn – specifically, how they process numerical information differently depending on who provides it.
Inspired by previous research showing children tend to associate math ability with men, Cracknell and fellow Rutgers researchers designed experiments to test whether a teacher’s gender affects how children estimate and understand numbers. Numerical estimation is a foundational math skill that predicts long-term academic achievement. While children are born with an intuitive sense of quantity, they generally don’t learn to connect visual representations – such as a handful of grapes – with symbolic numbers until around age 5. To read the full story.