Gender and mathematics: attitudes and stereotype threat susceptibility in Italian children.
Two experiments investigated the development of attitudes toward mathematics and stereotype threat susceptibility in Italian children. Experiment 1 involved 476 elementary school boys and girls and produced evidence of gender differences in self-confidence in one's own mathematical ability and in gender stereotyping of mathematics during elementary school. It also provided initial evidence for a decrement in 10-year-old girls' mathematics performance when stereotype threat was made salient by reminding participants that extraordinary achievement in mathematics is typically a male phenomenon. Experiment 2 (N=271) replicated these findings and expanded them to middle school-age participants. Its results suggest that during middle school, the patterns observed in elementary school consolidate, and the stereotypes begin to produce detrimental effects in girls.
Muzzatti
Barbara
B
Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Agnoli
Franca
F
D001076:Aptitude; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D003469:Culture; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013240:Stereotyping