ABSTRACT
As far back as the early 1900s, studies of educational achievement in the United States were reporting sex differences in achievement in mathematics, in males’ favor (Leder, 1992). As noted by Weiner (1994), however, serious research into gender equity in mathematics was not undertaken until the late 1960s, when gender was problematized as an educational issue. Three decades of such research have now resulted in a large body of literature on differential patterns of participation and performance for males and females in mathematics. Comprehensive international comparative studies, metaanalyses, and reviews of this research (e.g., Husen, 1967; Leder, 1992; Linn & Hyde, 1989; Locan, Ford, & Greenwood, 1996; Robitaille & Garden, 1989) reveal that, over time, sex differences in both performance and participation in mathematics have declined to the point where they are now quite small, although males still outnumber females in higher-level mathematics courses in many countries (Dekkers, deLaeter, & Malone, 1991; Hanna, 1996; National Science Board, 1996). Further, as found by Leder (1992), the differences vary across time and content, as well as country, and appear to be explained by a complex interaction of multiple factors rather than by one specific factor.
