Kevin was ruminating a while back about anti-intellectualism in America. That sort of thing is hard to quantify, but I think I may have found some hard data in a recent report by the Mathematical Association of America. Here are some highlights from the coverage:
The pipeline for nurturing top math talent in the U.S. is badly broken beginning at the middle school level. Eighty percent of female and 60 percent of male faculty hired in recent years by the very top U.S. research university mathematics departments were born in other countries.
Innate math aptitude is probably fairly evenly distributed throughout the world, regardless of race or gender. The huge differences observed in achievement levels are most likely due to socio-cultural attributes specific to each country.
Throughout middle and high school, social stigma and lack of appropriately challenging educational opportunities for the mathematically precocious becomes a hard reality in most American schools. Consequently, gifted girls, even more so than boys, often camouflage their mathematical talent to fit in well with their peers.
Doesn’t sound good, does it.
I once heard an anecdotal theory about differing levels of math ability: that Americans regard math as a “talent” and that if you’re “not good at it” you never will be so why bother; whereas Asian countries in particular look at it as an important skill, so if you’re not good at it you’d better darn well work at it until you are.
I have no idea if that accurately described or accounts for the differences, but it does jibe well with what I observed in high school. Americans really do seem to accept “Oh, I suck at math” as a valid excuse.
“social stigma”??
To **not** do well in school??
My, how times have changes since the Middle Ages when I went to school. Admittedly, there were different groups back then, and I was most certainly not a “jock”…but I don’t recall being ostracized for being an Honors Student.
Or perhaps it was the company I kept. Maybe the others *were* saying things about us. ::paranoia::
It is quite sad that peer pressure has become such an overwhelming force in school. I mean in the sixties when I was going to school it was there but you had support from the group you fit in.
For some who wanted to fit into the other groups it was hard being “teacher’s pet” or “smart” but for those of us who were OK with it, we supported each other.
I am glad for those school friends and also glad for the support of my parents. I suspect that has broken down somewhat as the time available for family has dwindled as well.