Fischer, Jean-Paul <br/><br/>
Gender Differences in Arithmetic 

 -  2008.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 35 
<br/><br/> A recent survey by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economical Studies, over more than 10,000 subjects aged 18 to 65 years, leads to a study of the gender differences in elementary arithmetic problem solving. Even if the magnitude of the overall difference (favouring the men) is small (d = 0.17), three main results emerge from the data : (1) There is no evidence that the magnitude of the gender difference changes with the age of the participants, a result that the authors suggest to interpret as a lack of evolution over the historical time (from 1960 to 2004) ; (2) The gender differences in adulthood are similar from – and in continuity with – the gender differences observed on university or high school students ; (3) When the language is misleading, women seem to be more the victims of it. According to these main results, the authors suggest, as a conclusion, an original scenario for the ontogenetic development of the gender differences in mathematics.