It is the social sciences that enlighten us on this. And indeed, first observation: in France, girls are less likely than boys to pursue maths up to the baccalaureate, yet they are no less gifted.
Up to first grade, they are even more efficient, according to two recent French studies. MBut from CE1, boys take the advantage and obtain better results, whatever their social background.
This swing cannot be explained not by nature, the brain of boys is not biologically more competent than that of girls for maths. Several studies, in particular from the universities of Harvard and Chicago, have shown that it is rather gender stereotypes that influence student results because parents or teachers may sometimes unconsciously tend to encourage boys more in maths, which which affects the performance of the girls.
In the international rankings, PISA, TIMSS, French students are at the bottom of the ranking of the 38 countries of the Oorganization for economic cooperation and development (OECD). And according to the work of National Council for the Evaluation of the School System (CNESCO) in France, several factors may explain this situation.
First, a lack of scientific training for the teachers themselves. In France, 80% of primary school teachers did not follow science education after the baccalaureate. Then, the teaching of maths is rather written and theoretical in our country, whereas other countries use more the manipulation of objects, games, computers, and oral explanations to teach mathematics, and studies show that it suits the students better.
It is true that we are not all intelligent in the same way. Moreover, rather than talking about different intelligence, specialists now prefer to talk about different “learning preferences”. But we must remember that nothing is final, because the brain is plastic, and our learning preferences evolve with age and experience. This means that no one can be definitively placed in the category of “cracks” or “dummies in math”.