We began our background research by searching on www.google.com and using the keywords “math + gender” and “relationship between math and sex.”  We found the following six websites that were similar to our intended study of math grade average of males and females.

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm

This article, “Sex Differences in Mathematical Aptitude” shows a study that has been done.  The study was representative of all 15-year olds in the United States.  It was comprised of more than 73,000 15-year olds, both students and non-students.  The mean of the females was slightly lower than that of the males, and the standard deviation was smaller for the females than of the males.

http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Stereo.pdf

This article, “Girls Are...Boys Are…: Myths, Stereotypes & Gender Differences” states that there is a myth of a sex-linked math gene. But in reality, the cause for the average grade difference in math is from parents’ expectations.  Parents tend to have lower expectations for girls in math.  There is a lot of evidence that encouragement and practice improves math skills for females.  The article also states that sex is a bad predictor of academic skills.  The relationship shown in the article between sex and quantitative skills is about .1, which is a very weak relationship.

http://math.about.com/library/weekly/aa011002a.htm

The article, “Research indicates the gender gap is narrowing” states that girls are underrepresented in college majors relating to mathematics.  Females tend to be better than males in mathematics classes, yet they continue to score lower on tests including the SATs.  Standardized tests scores showed that girls were significantly behind in math, in the beginning of the 1980s, however, in 1996, a national assessment test showed 17-year old boys led girls by only 5 points in math.  Therefore, the gap is beginning to narrow.

http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2005/07/gender-math-stereotype-threat-and.html

The article, “Gender, Math, Stereotype Threat, and Testosterone” states that “great deal of evidence for social/environmental factors that influence the observed gender differences in performance on standardized math tests”.  The author feels that there is a stereotype threat or an influence of society that encourages males in the field of mathematics and discourages females in mathematics.  He also states that women currently in math fields are feeling the pressures of the stereotype and are much more likely to discourage female students from pursuing math. 

http://www.nncc.org/Curriculum/sac52_math.science.girls.html

In the article, “Math, Science, and Girls: Can we close the gender gap?” the author writes that the previous theory on boys and girls math capabilities was that boys tended to have better spatial abilities which are used heavily in mathematics.  But in recent studies researchers have turned to environmental influence on the students.  When people buy into the stereotypes, they are less likely to support the young girls in their sphere of influence in the field of mathematics. 

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february9/math-020905.html

In the article, “No evidence of innate gender differences in math and science, scholars assert,” the author states that the difference in performance between males and females on standardized tests has shrunk over the years.  An associate professor of mathematics education at the School of Education feels that the timed-test and the multiple-choice format might be a cause of the gender gap in mathematics.  Also, the article concludes with the statement that negative stereotyping has a direct effect on performance, and females have been experiencing the negative stereotype of “girls do well in math only if they work hard,” while boys receive the stereotype of “boys are naturally gifted in math.”  The author feels that this stereotyping effects the gender gap in mathematics.

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