Numbers don’t add up for U.S. girls

Culture may turn potentially high achievers away from math

A combination of peer pressure, gender stereotyping and low expectations contributes to turning potentially gifted kids — especially girls — away from mathematics, wasting a precious national resource, a new study suggests.

The study, by cancer biochemist Janet Mertz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her collaborators, appears in the November Notices of the American Mathematical Society.