Common Beliefs
In the United States, many people believe that only a few "gifted" individuals have "what it takes" to learn math, and that hard work cannot compensate for this. Studies have shown "When asked to explain why some children do better in math than others, Asian children, their teachers, and their parents point to hard work, their American counterparts to ability."
Women mathematicians in the United States have almost always been a minority according to Margaret Murray. Although the exact difference fluctuates with the times as she has explored in her book . "Since 1980, women have earned over 17 percent of the mathematics doctorates.... ". The trends in gender are by no means clear, but perhaps parity is still a way to go. Thus parity will take more work to overcome mathematical anxiety and this is one reason for women in mathematics being role models for younger women.
Read more about this topic: Mathematical Anxiety
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or beliefs:
“Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“To a first approximation, the intentional strategy consists of treating the object whose behavior you want to predict as a rational agent with beliefs and desires and other mental states exhibiting what Brentano and others call intentionality.”
—Daniel Clement Dennett (b. 1942)