Researchers at Rutgers’ Cognition and Learning Center with a child: doctoral student Kathleen Cracknell (left), graduate student Julia Hauss (centre) and Assistant Professor Jinjing ‘Jenny’ Wang (right). Credit: Jeff Arban/ Rutgers University.

Numerical estimation, a foundational maths skill for children, can be negatively influenced with wrong answers from male teachers.

Young children are more inclined to believe incorrect maths information from men than accurate information from women, according to a new study from Rutgers University–New Brunswick. 

The findings suggest that early gender stereotypes can influence learning itself, not just attitudes toward intelligence as previously thought.

Lead author Kathleen Cracknell, a doctoral student in cognitive psychology at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, said: “It’s already been determined that male math bias exists, but this is the first time that we’re seeing gender bias directly influencing how children learn math.”

For the youngest learners, ‘brilliance bias’ is a well-documented, if lamentable, feature of early childhood. Girls as young as six associate boys with greater intellect, studies show.

But gender bias doesn’t only shape what children believe about their own abilities.

The new Rutgers study suggests it also may influence how children learn – specifically, how they process numerical information differently depending on who provides it.

Online estimation task

Inspired by previous research showing children tend to associate maths ability with men, Cracknell and fellow Rutgers researchers designed experiments to test whether a teacher’s gender affects how children estimate and understand numbers.

Numerical estimation is a foundational maths skill that predicts long-term academic achievement.

While children are born with an intuitive sense of quantity, they generally don’t learn to connect visual representations – such as a handful of grapes – with symbolic numbers until around age five.

To explore whether gender stereotypes affect this process, the researchers recruited 198 children aged five to seven in the United States – 93 girls and 105 boys – to participate in an online estimation task.

Study recruitment was conducted through Children Helping Science, a research platform that allows families to participate in child development studies from home.

With help from a caregiver, the participants played a series of online guessing games during which they were asked to estimate the number of dots appearing onscreen.

First, the children played the game alone. Then, they were asked to repeat the game with ‘friends’, a male and female avatar that provided guesses before the child.

In some cases, the man overestimated the number of dots and the woman was accurate, and in others it was reversed. 

The researchers also included a non-numerical memory game as a control, to ensure that any effects were specific to maths, not general trust or attention.

Striking

The results were striking. Answers were consistently pulled toward the male’s estimates more than the female’s – even when the male was clearly wrong (such as estimating 24 when there were 12 dots onscreen), and the female was correct.

Equally surprising, when kids were repeatedly exposed to incorrect answers from the male, their later estimates stayed biased even after the avatars were gone, said Julia Hauss, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and a coauthor of the study.

According to the researchers, the findings show that children aren’t just absorbing stereotypes: they are using them to calibrate their understanding of the world.

Jenny Wang, an assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science and director of Cognitive Kids, a collaboration of child development research labs at Rutgers, conceptualised and supervised the study. She said: “We found that children are not only biased to think that men are more competent but also trust or value math information provided by men more so than information provided by women.”

Silver lining

There is a silver lining for educators. Typically, students learn maths from a single teacher and don’t have the opportunity to make gendered comparisons in the classroom.

Children also are also quick to identify intentional misdirection. When misinformation becomes deceitful, trust erodes and the gender bias is reversed, Hauss said.

Still, the findings are an opportunity to improve educational outcomes and remind educators that children receive and process information through a gendered lens. 

Wang said: “These findings have important implications for combating gender stereotypes and learning challenges in the real world, given that caregivers and teachers are often women.”

The study is published in the journal Developmental Science.