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Re: MentorNet (one woman's response)




John - I fail to see how your conclusion follows from your
examples. Bias implies a
deliberate (conscious or unconscious) difference in the way
groups are dealt with.
Your examples simply show that male and female students have a
predisposition to react
differently to the same circumstances.


Perhaps the word bias was strong, however it is applicable to the first
study I mentioned where the researches saw evidence that girls had less
physical experience. Certainly when boys and girls are mixed the male
competition leaves the girls out, which could be considered a bias.

I was meaning the word bias in the older sense as a tendency toward rather
than in the modern sense as being an intentional discrimination. Something
is at work which tends to force girls away from the physical sciences,
especially physics. Whether this is mostly due to an inborn difference
between males and females, or is mainly due to society's attitudes is not
entirely known. That both of these come into play is true, the proportion
is in dispute.

BTW the completely cited paper also showed that students did not construct
good models for open or closed circuits, and proposed some remedies for the
problems. Students studied circuits for 3 weeks in the study.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.