Inter-generational Transfer of Stereotypes about Math: Multimethod Investigation of Chilean Families

• In Event: 2-131 - Intergroup Stereotypes about STEM and Intellectual Abilities: Interdisciplinary Evidence from Singapore, USA, and Chile

Integrative Statement

Early mathematical skills are critical for later career success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, & Beilock, 2012). Building early and positive beliefs about math can have cascading effects for STEM skill development (Watts, Duncan, Siegler, & Davis-Kean, 2014).

Do children come to school with beliefs and stereotypes about “who does math”? To address this developmental question, studies are needed to examine children’s beliefs about math and their relations to family factors before first grade, especially in understudied child populations from developing countries.

The current study investigated how Chilean mothers’ and fathers’ beliefs about math, as well as mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in math-related activities contribute to children’s beliefs about “who does math” by 5 years of age. Chile was chosen as a target country, because it has one of the largest gender gaps in the international PISA mathematics assessment (OECD, 2015), as well as persisting gender gaps in career choice and access to the better-paid jobs (Stoet, Bailey, Moore, & Geary, 2016).

180 Chilean kindergarteners (Mage = 5.6 years) of low and high SES completed measures of gender stereotypes and math self-concept. Both explicit and implicit measures were used. For the explicit measure, children were shown pictures of a child characters, and asked self-report questions about “who does math”. For the implicit measure, the Child Implicit Association Test (Child IAT) was used. The Child IAT is a computerized categorization task that measures strengths of associations among concepts without requiring self-report. An IAT score (D) is calculated from the speed with which children categorize exemplars from four categories using only two response options (Baron & Banaji, 2006; Cvencek, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011). Children’s mothers and fathers completed the adult versions of these tests, as well as measures of home numeracy practices. This combination of child and parental (both mother and father) information provided a wide range of measures to analyze.

Results showed that on implicit measures of math–gender stereotypes, boys associated math = boy significantly more strongly than girls did (p < .05). Fathers and mothers demonstrated the math = male stereotype on both implicit and explicit measures (p < .001). Fathers also linked me = math more strongly than mothers on both implicit and explicit measures (p < .001). Kindergarten girls’ implicit math self-concept was well explained by a combination of parents’ math self-concepts and SES (χ2 = 64.53, p = .16; RMSEA = 0.048; CFI = 0.915). Taken together, these results show that by 5 years of age children begin to develop beliefs about “who does math” in their culture.

The implications of how parental beliefs and practices are linked to the emergence of children’s early developing math stereotypes will be discussed. Given the continuing increase of immigrants from Latin America, emphasis will be placed on the practical implications for U.S. educators and developmental psychologists for understanding how the parental systems function in Latino cultures, and how traditional roles within the family may impact young children’s own beliefs about math.

Authors

• Dario Cvencek, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Francisca del Río, Universidad Diego Portales de Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine Strasser, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• María Inés Susperreguy, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrew Meltzoff, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author