Community Resilience

Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women’s representation in mathematics

There have been many studies done to explore the question of why women are underrepresented in math studies.

This study looked directly at sense of belonging as a factor and found that the message that math ability is a fixed trait and the stereotype that women have less of this ability than men worked together to erode women’s sense of belonging in math.

Their lowered sense of belonging, in turn, mediated women’s desire to pursue math in the future and their math grades.

Interestingly, the message that math ability could be acquired protected women from negative stereotypes, allowing them to maintain a high sense of belonging in math and the intention to pursue math in the future.

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