(Newser)
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Cross another stereotype off the list: Any differences between men's and women's math abilities are cultural, not innate, a study finds. Studies that have suggested such differences covered too few countries to give an accurate picture, researchers say. The new study, however, reviewed math scores across 86 countries, with a better representation of non-Western societies, reports the Daily Mail. "We found that boys—as well as girls—tend to do better in maths when raised in countries where females have better equality, and that's new and important," says one researcher.
"This is not a matter of biology: None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level," he adds. "It makes sense that when women are well-educated and earn a good income, the maths scores of their children of both genders benefit." The study has been published in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
