mind the gap

An interesting article about gender difference in maths and reading test scores in this week's economist, 'Vital Statistics':

Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence and his colleagues have just published the results of a study which suggests that culture explains most of the difference in maths, at least. In this week's Science, they show that the gap in mathematics scores between boys and girls virtually disappears in countries with high levels of sexual equality, though the reading gap remains.

Here's a lovely graphic to illustrate the study results:

Basically, it seems that girls, in countries where gender parity is more or less reached (e.g. Iceland). have an absolute advantage. Go read it. I can't wait to see what the wingnuts make of this...

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