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waxwing
Joined: 29 Jun 2003
Posts: 719
Location: China
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 Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| struelle wrote: |
For me it depends on the classes .... I teach both Physics and Calc. Not surprisingly the guys gravitate to the Phys classes. I had a peek at next year's figures and it's something like 2:1 ratio almost. That's when they just made the course optional and students aren't forced to take it, the total numbers are down a bit, and it looks like the girls got scared off.
On the other hand, the number of females taking Calc next year is way up, and it may be more than 50%. The class averages last year were really skewed in favor of the girls doing better overall. Something strange like almost 80% avg for them, and only around 70% for guys.
Contrary to what you might expect as well, at least in our school, it is rare to see the seniors taking both Physics and Calc .... we teach a more remedial type of calculus. Those who take it are generally college-bound an just want an easy credit, whereas the hard-core science people load up on Physics and Chem, and wait until university for caclulus. Either that or they try and get into AP, although the competition is fierce.
Steve |
Yes, in my experience in Guangdong (and I get the impression it's similar in the school I'm just starting with in Nanjing), there is still that pressure from stereotypes with regard to Physics and where girls have a choice they're less enthusiastic about it. But it's also clear that the pressure is not as strong as in Britain.
I found the boy-girl mix was pretty even overall. But I have no doubt that wherever foreign language is an issue, girls and women seem to be on average better motivated and often more talented too.
The students studying A-level here do some pretty reasonable-level calculus, at least up to 1st order DEs and actually second order if they do Further Maths. It's another example of how apples-and-oranges-y the American/British systems are. I actually think the Chinese and British systems have more commonalities in some ways. Umm .. although perhaps not when it comes to calculus. |
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