The Nexus

For years, the education community has been plagued by severe gender gaps in subject matter. Boys have always gravitated towards math and hard sciences such as physics and chemistry, while girls drift towards the humanities and softer science like biology.

This epidemic had spread to such wide measures that the 2005 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Conference met under the theme of “Embracing Mathematical Diversity.”

Recently, however, the tides have been changing, and is reflected in enrollment of classes here at Westview.

Take, for example, the AP Art History course at our school last year had five boys out of the 22 in the class. This year the number leaped to 14 boys out of 39 students.

Physics teacher Dawn Hester said that she has noticed a decided difference in the gender gap in her class as well.

“Two years ago, there were only about five girls out of like 40 kids, but the year after, [the number of girls] really grew,” she said.

The cause of the gender gap in course interests has been the subject of much speculation, and no definitive answer has been reached, but there are strong theories.

It has been suggested that the gap is caused by innate biological differences. Harvard University’s previous president, Lawrence Summers, has supported that claim himself, citing a study conducted for Harvard University Press by sociology professors Yu Xie of University of Michigan and Kimberlee Shauman of the University of California at Davis.

But these same sociologists themselves denounce that claim, noting that the gender gap does not appear to be based on innate biological differences, but instead on societal pressures that cause males to be either higher or lower level achievers, while for females, it is acceptable to float in the middle.

As for males, the softer subjects of English, History and Biological sciences have been characterized as weak.

For males, “weak” emotions and persuasions have been labeled as overly feminine when of the cold, hard subjects that deal with brute force and are devoid of emotions have been labeled as the truly masculine subjects.

However, attitudes towards women and men have been changing. More androgynistic roles are becoming more and more accepted by our society at large. The liberalization of society has allowed for boys to be more emotional, and for girls to pursue power, according to Xie and Shauman.

So now Westview has become part of the overall trend of the nation, waiting to see what the future holds.