It is essential to keep exploring the unique sociocultural elements that shape gender disparities in educational attitudes. Previous measures of women in research fields included many women in STEM careers, but not all of them were in STEM fields where men are traditionally overrepresented. One explanation for the greater sex differences in mathematical anxiety in countries with higher gender equality is that these countries have a smaller power gap, leading to more comparisons between sexes (as suggested by proponents of the gender stratification model). This would then raise girls' mathematical anxiety in countries with greater gender equality and result in greater differences between the sexes. In other words, girls from countries with high gender equality, such as Norway and Germany, have relatively higher levels of math anxiety than boys from those countries, while girls and boys from countries with lower gender equality, such as Mexico and Italy, don't differ as much in terms of math anxiety.
Meanwhile, some educators are taking advantage of the moment and the extra money to implement local experiments aimed at transforming school culture in some of the most challenging neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Oakland. We evaluated these possibilities in three ways, namely, by examining the relationship between math anxiety and (the proportion of mothers and fathers working in STEM fields) in each country's sample, (the reports of boys and girls about their parents' assessment of mathematics) and (parents' beliefs) about the importance of mathematics for their sons and daughters. Despite global advances in gender equality across various social spheres, there is still an underrepresentation of girls and women in fields related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The basic prediction is that gender differences in abilities, affections and psychological outcomes will diminish as social barriers to women's participation are removed, that is, as social beliefs about areas historically dominated by men are diluted and equal opportunities for men and women increase.
