Almost daily, I receive an email or other correspondence asking about the influences of nature, nurture, and culture on Girls/STEM training and Women/STEM gaps in the workplace.  In The Minds of Girls, I go into this important subject in depth.  At our Winter Training Institute in Atlanta in January, I and our team will explore this topic in strategic depth (for more information and to register, click here:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-winter-institute-2020/).

In this blog, I will answer the question, “Can you please respond to this headline:  “MarketWatch: Boys and girls have an equal aptitude for math — so why are there are so few women in higher paying STEM jobs?” (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boys-and-girls-have-an-equal-aptitude-for-math-so-why-are-there-are-so-few-women-in-higher-paying-stem-jobs-2019-11-12).  The Marketwatch and similar articles note a brain scan study of 104 children between 3 and 10 years old watching educational videos about mathematics and then doing simple math.   The researchers assert that 104 scans of young children have ended the nature/nurture question.  They then further assert that male/female brain have nothing to do with lopsided female participation in engineering and computer coding jobs in adulthood.

They are wrong on both counts.  Not just wrong, but perpetrating a myth that negatively affects girls and women who want to pursue technology and engineering careers.

All three elements of human development–nature, nurture, and culture–play significant roles in the relative paucity of women in engineering and coding, with male/female brain differences playing a very large part.  This is the part we must grapple with during childhood and adolescence.   In our 25 years of implementation research, the Gurian Institute has found that  brain-based educational strategies from birth onward, especially in homes and schools, are key to closing gender gaps in STEM later in life.  These implementation tools only work because they take head on (pun intended) the male and female brain (what neurobiological researchers call “sexual di-morphism in the brain”).

 

The New “Study”

 

To find the new 104 scan study of 3 – 10 year olds that has, in one reporter’s words, “closed the debate on nature/nurture,” and, in another reporter’s words, “settled the question,” google the headline I gave in the first paragraph.  You’ll see multiple reports on the study, all jumping to the same conclusion.   To go to the study itself, click:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-019-0057-x.

The study’s authors asked children to watch educational videos regarding mathematics and fMRIs during these activities indicated, “no evidence of gender differences in neural responses to mathematics content, neural responses during educational video viewing, or rates of neural development for mathematical processing in early childhood, and in fact we found statistical equivalence between boys and girls throughout the brain.”  The researchers further note their efforts to look at other studies on male/female brain differences in mathematics acquisition and implementation.

They did look at a few, as you’ll see, which is a laudable effort, but they left out many crucial studies from their analysis, cherry-picking bits of studies that could morph to fit their ideological position which is:  pertinent STEM differences in brain function do not exist in the brains of boys and girls because boys and girls are not “different” per se but we are all one homogenous human group, on a spectrum.  In other words, diversity exists between brains but not diversity that includes significance of male and female.

The researchers are correct, of course, that 1) every brain is somewhat different from every other, and 2) all brains exist on a spectrum of natural development; but it is not true that 104 scans disprove the existence of male/female brain difference.  In fact, sexual di-morphism in the brain exists across races and cultures because of X and Y chromosomes.  This chromosome pair directs hormonal surges in utero that format male and female brains.   Female and male brains come out “human,” yes, and “on a spectrum,” yes, but also female and male.

 

The Larger Body of Research

 

To see studies that remain more scientific and less ideological than the current 104 scan study/reportage, check out:

*David Geary, Evolution of Sex Differences in Trait- and Age-Specific Vulnerabilities, Perspectives in Psychological Science, Vol. 11(6) 2016, which includes nearly 200 clinical studies and references showing male/female brain difference.

*Palejwala, M.H. and Goldenring, J., “Gender Differences in Latent Cognitive Abilities in Children Aged 2 to 7,” Intelligence, January 2015.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289614001548?dgcid=raven_sd_recommender_email.

*Halpern, D.F., Benbow, C. P., Geary, D.C., Gur, R.C., Shibley Hyde, J., and Gernsbacher, M.A. The Science of Sex Differences in Science and Mathematics, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Volume 8, No. 1, August 2007, which specifically shows brain difference regarding spatial-mechanical male/female ratios in the brain, ratios important to STEM.

*M.D. Wheelock, et.al. “Sex differences in functional connectivity during fetal brain development,” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, April 2019, Vol 3: 100632, which shows male/female brain difference already established in utero via brain scans of children still in the womb.

Brizendine, Louanne, The Male Brain, 2011, and The Female Brain, 2007, which include hundreds of references to studies analyzing male/female brain difference.

*Gurian, Michael, The Minds of Girls, 2018, which houses hundreds of studies analyzed to be helpful for parents, teachers, mentors, and others raising and educating girls, and https://www.michaelgurian.com/about/research-reference-list/,  which houses approximately 1,000 study references.

As I’ve noted in other blogs at www.psychologytoday.com and www.gurianinstitute.com, academic researchers who remain science-based all discover what Geary, Gur, Benbow and others discover:  that male/female brain difference is a crucial factor in human development.  Neuro-scientist Camilla Benbow, for instance, has studied nearly 2,000,000 children and seen clear brain differences affecting future math performance.  She and these other researchers utilize large sample sizes and study the brain longitudinally (over a long period of time).  104 scans of small children watching videos and doing simple math is not adequate for the conclusion that the brain has little to do with a child’s development.

 

Social Constructivism is Flawed Science

 

But some academics and even some scientists, like the ones who did the 104 scan study, push an ideology called “the social constructivist model for sex and gender.”   This ideology pretends to free us from a “dangerous” and “incomplete” sex/gender di-morphism, but actually hinders our social ability to solve issues each sex and all genders face.

What is social constructivism (SC)?  It is a sociological model that does not require large sample sizes and insists that, despite the mapping of the human genome, the brain is basically a blank slate when it comes to questions of ideological or political concern in the fields of sex and gender; that blank slate is filled in by social interactions (nurture and culture), and those nature/culture interactions are so powerful, they override any tiny potential for anything in inherited (genetic) nature.   Social constructivists cherry-pick science and frame/re-frame “studies” and “meta-analysis” to show the outcome they want, that “science shows us that male and female don’t really exist except as a traditional gender role imposition by old outdated patriarchal models of human life.”

This is a kind of social advocacy is well-meaning, I think–social constructivists believe that to protect women and LGBTQ populations, they must force our culture to remove “male” and “female” from fundamental conversations–but their approach ends up backfiring on the very girls, women, and minorities they seek to protect.  Relying on the SC and pretending that there is little or no “nature” involved in who we are as women/girls and men/boys, our society sets up social systems (educational, parental, mental health, government, etc.) that neglect human nature and thus do not end up fully supporting crucial aspects of individual human development.

In the area of STEM, this problem shows up as we look at what educators (teachers, administrators, counselors) learn in the academy–in graduate school or teacher certification classes–regarding male and female brain:  basically nothing.  So, they set up pre-K – 12  classrooms without realizing how boys and girls learn differently by nature.  These are amazing people, our teachers, doing amazing work, but no one has shown them brain scans that show differences.   As they teach toward the SC model, boys end up under-performing in school compared to girls in most areas but outperforming girls in tech and engineering later.

 

The Gurian Institute Model

 

The Gurian Institute model goes deeper.  Our nature-based theory argues that there are three fundamental drivers of sex and gender:  Nature, Nurture, and Culture.  Because our model is a “nurture the nature” model, we account for nature first, then see nurture as a wraparound, then culture as a potential driver of some aspects of sex and gender but not the most important.  In this way, we follow, metaphorically, the brain itself:  the brain stem is the oldest part of our brains, the limbic system wraps around it, the four lobes at the top of the brain wrap around the limbic system.

Our 25 years of research in schools shows (Boys and Girls Learn Differently, The Minds of Girls) when teachers see the brain scans and look at male/female brain difference, they very smartly alter classrooms to accommodate the inherent female disadvantage (well proven since back in the 1980s) in spatial development and gray matter activity focus that is necessary for success in STEM, especially the T, E, and M parts of the STEM workplace.  Teachers re-invent their SC classrooms because they get a deep dive into sexual di-morphism (male/female brain difference).  Once they’ve spent a number of days and weeks, even months or years, delving into the real and robust brain research in this area, they feel compelled to affect true systemic change.

Here are some of the ways they do it.

 

Strategies and Science that Can Close STEM Gaps.

 

*Teachers help girls to understand how much the female brain defaults towards word-use in its functioning; while celebrating the areas of both sides of the female brain that light up for word use, teachers point out that the males use less of their brains for words and more of its brain for what is called “visual-spatial” functioning, the very functioning that is essential for tech and engineering.  When I have spoken at schools to the students, I show brain scans and see the girls and boys’ eyes light up as they understand why more guys gravitate towards complex video games (visual-spatial) and why more girls gravitate toward complex social media (word oriented and social-emotional).  I show them how much more testosterone boys produce (which increases aggression and spatial-gray matter development) and how much more oxytocin girls produce (a bonding/social-emotional chemical), which increases their drive to relate with others outside a spatial-mechanical context.  As the students, teachers, and parents look at the scans, light bulbs go off, and systems change to alter STEM teaching for girls.

*Teachers now start teaching girls (and boys) themselves the importance of a brain-based approach; for instance, that because girls use more “brain time” and “brain space” for social-emotional contact and less for certain key gray matter area developments that are crucial for an engineering job, we must add brain science to our classroom pedagogy.  Middle and high school students are now encouraged to look at the research in our sex/gender field, even SC research, that shows:  1) women often choose against the T, E, and M fields in STEM because those fields include less social-emotional function (work/life balance and relational/attachment) than women often want (those fields are often more solitary than others) and 2) women who become engineers often start out in a field like industrial engineering but then move to another field, e.g. either the PR or HR side of engineering (more social-emotional, oxytocin-based contact), or they leave the engineering firm to have kids, or just to try something else.  These class discussions celebrate the new freedom for women but also analyze how it speaks to the STEM gap:   if our social goal is to have more women engineers who stay in engineering over the long haul, then we have to start girls very young in realizing how these fields work, and how to help their own brains downplay social-emotional contact and up-play spatial-mechanical tasking and sequencing.

*Teachers help girls understand the oxytocin- and white matter-related female advantage in multi-tasking (females use up to ten times more white matter activity for intellectual function and boys use up to seven times more gray matter activity for the same functioning); as students and teachers recognize this, classrooms adjust to de-multi-task girls’ STEM learning, i.e. to keep girls focused on spatial, mechanical tasks so that girls can develop the gray matter areas of the brain needed later for tech and engineering careers.  If a girl can look at her smartphone, for instance, while she is doing a spatial-mechanical task, she is likely to multi-task two or three threads on the smartphone that will distract her brain from the spatial-mechanical development she needs in order to develop/compete in engineering.  Teachers alter classrooms (and students see the logic of this transformation) to disallow distractions like smart phones during certain STEM learning.

*Teachers alter their classrooms to include the core-strategy of supporting both discussion and writing (word use) during spatial learning (blocks, spatial play, legos, building, lab work) AND making sure girls do NOT use words for a period of time while problem-solving and building; thus, girls will build up spatial/building gray matter areas of the brain that boys tend to develop more fully, more naturally.  Why do boys grow these areas?  In part because of natural templating (testosterone based) but also because boys do not tend to use as many words to do sequencing and pattern thinking, which can give them an advantage in later careers in tech and engineering that are not word-based but spatially-based (e.g. building something requires far less words and far more visualization of the mechanics than another career might).  If girls/women are going to compete with them in engineering fields, and if girls/women are going to want to join those fields and jobs, they will likely need to utilize less words in certain crucial functions and become sanguine with that.

*Teachers make sure females move around classrooms more, exciting the cerebellum in girls more than girls normally excite it in a sit-still classroom.  With the cerebellum excited, other parts of the brain will fill up with activity, including visual-spatial areas.  If the cerebellum is not excited, and if visual-spatial gray matter areas are not filling up with activity, it is also less likely that the temporal-parietal junction (a problem-solving part of the brain) will not be as excited in the female as male brain.  When I go to schools to speak I love seeing how clearly the students and teachers already know that males default more toward problem-solving in their emotional connections and females spend more time in verbal-emotive processing.  This is “common sense,” as many teachers, parents, and teens have told me.  Physical movement in a classroom is a good tool for spatial function in the brain, and it is also something that will likely be much more needed in an engineering/coding career than will be sit-still, complex word-use.

*Teachers encourage girls and boys to play and work in separate sex groups, at times, e.g. “girls only day in the block corner,” which makes spatial play, spatial learning, and higher sequencing-learning girl-friendly by keeping the boys in another part of the room.   With boys separated, spatial/sequencing dominant boys do not interrupt girls’ development of crucial spatial and other gray matter areas of the brain, including the inferior parietal lobule, an area of the brain crucial to engineering and coding.  If you want to see the girls only day strategy at work around you, go to a preschool and first notice how coed block play works:  you’ll generally see that when boys and girls do block play together, a number of girls do not get the time to fully build their block structure before the spatial and aggressive boys knock structures down and build them up their way.  As you notice this, make a slight change:  separate the boys and girls for block play.  Now notice how complex and interesting the girls’ block-structures become.  It will generally take the girls longer to build what they want to build, and they will generally not want to knock it down right away.  The sex differences in this kind of block play can be quite edifying.

*Teachers observe male and female competition patterns and work with girls to 1) increase their competitiveness in hierarchies, and 2) stop taking things personally!   One of the most interesting patterns my team and other researchers have noted gets expressed by teachers this way:  “Boys just don’t take as many things personally as girls do.”   When I have worked in Fortune 500 companies to train their managers and teams, executives have mirrored this comment with, “We need women to not take as much personally as they do if they are going to fully compete.”  It is not politically correct to say this, and so it is generally said in private, but it is said, mainly, by women.  These women also say, “I wish I got tougher earlier on, back when I was young.  A lot of us wish we did.”  A girl who wants later to sustain her career in engineering, high tech, fire fighting, law enforcement, corporate finance, and nearly any STEM field will not compete well–whether in performance or promotion–if she takes too much personally.  As early as preschool, teachers who are conscious of wanting to improve STEM career opportunities later will start training girls to be honest about their feelings, yes, but also to be more stoic when they are taking personally something that is really an interaction of competition.

 

Become a Citizen Scientist!

 

If you have read Saving Our Sons or The Minds of Girls, you’ll know that I beg everyone to become a “citizen scientist.”  You can use my books and our Gurian Institute training as stepping stones toward your own citizen science regarding the complexity of STEM issues.   Experts and reporters are just human beings like you who have come to a conclusion, sometimes far too quickly, and you have the right to judge the data.

As you become a citizen scientist, you may start to notice the “causality error” in social constructivism.  That error shows up in the 104 scan study and the reporting around it.   The researchers and reports have proposed that how a child watches a math video at 5 or 8 has a direct causal link to how that brain will do or succeed at engineering or coding later in life.  In reality, causality does not exist between doing simple math at 5 or 8 years old and choosing or not choosing a career in engineering or mathematics.  The other brain related elements I just noted have much more to do with it.  But the error feeds itself because ideology, unfortunately, rules many factions of academic science.   When the researchers and reporters further argue, “Because we’ve proven there are no brain differences between girls and boys anyway, the reason women don’t become engineers is sex/gender bias in society that begins in gender stereotypes in school,” SC activists double down on the error by coming to two wrong or, at least, incomplete conclusions, conclusions they can only come to because they utilize tiny sample sizes and do not control for all factors–they just study one tiny sample of one tiny element then extrapolate ideologically.

Studying male/female brain differences in the use of the temporal parietal junction, inferior parietal lobule, gray/white matter activity, testosterone/oxytocin, or any of the other hundreds of brain differences does not negate that nurture and culture matter; rather, this citizen science finds actual causality and then uses nurture/culture to discover what strategies can most neuroplastically influence systemic change for girls in the first decade and a half of brain development.  Social constructivism has worked well to help girls in high school and college math/science classes, get them into STEM camps, and help them enjoy other projects and opportunities in STEM careers; it has also worked well to close gaps in biological sciences and medicine, where females now outnumber males in medical school and in research biology, but it can’t explain or grapple with brain differences that are the ultimate impediment to women entering and staying in coding and engineering.

 

Using Actual Brain Science, How Many More Female Engineers Will We Get?

People at my school visits often ask me:  “If everyone did exactly what you say in every classroom, would we have 50/50 female and male in engineering or coding?”  My answer is:  “That may not be the right question.  The right question might be:  are our girls and women getting the neural opportunity to compete with males right now for those jobs?”  I don’t think they are, and I think brain-friendly social systems are the answer to this lack of opportunity.

“But still,” the person will insist, “aren’t you trying to escape the question?  If you are arguing that there are inherent brain differences that impact STEM careers, especially high tech, higher leadership, and engineering, aren’t you saying we’ll never have 50/50 females and males in high tech, engineering, and the top levels of companies?”

“Just like we will likely always have more female kindergarten teachers than male,” I answer truthfully, “I think it’s likely we will always have more male mechanical engineers and firefighters than female.  Testosterone and oxytocin and all the brain differences are operative in every society.  Furthermore, I can’t say–since I am not a social constructivist–that having more male mechanical engineers than female is a bad thing.  To me, it should be a matter of choice for everyone in the society.”

Gail and I raised two very empowered daughters who have chosen the careers they’ve chosen (law and business) and what we fought for in raising them was their right to choose.  Because I do not have an ideological pressure in my head that every job must be 50/50, I stay focused on the ultimate goal of democracy:  equal opportunity.   To me, the science is telling us we can’t predict perfectly right now what percentages of jobs will go which way, but we do know this:   giving females equal opportunity to be and to remain mechanical engineers will not happen if we don’t pay attention to the human brain.

If you find this work interesting, we hope you’ll consider bringing the Gurian Institute and/or myself to your community or school to help you in this work.  We hope, also, you’ll visit www.gurianinstitute.com and note our Winter Training Institute, January 24-26 at the Lovett School in Atlanta.   To get more information and to register for that training event, please visit:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-winter-institute-2020/.  Online or at the WI, you and others from your school or organization can become Gurian Institute Certified Trainers who take the information, services, and systems change back to your community.

–Michael Gurian