Delhi students celebrate the CBSE Class X results. Girls did better than boys for the second year running. (Ramakant Kushwaha)

New Delhi, May 29: New research has revealed that girls’ performance in mathematics is related to gender inequality in society, demolishing a popular notion that boys are inherently better at mathematics than girls.

A team of economists in Italy and the US has found that girls’ underperformance in mathematics relative to boys — observed historically across several countries — disappears in cultures with greater gender equality.

The researchers analysed the scores of 276,165 15-year-olds from 40 countries who took identical tests in mathematics and reading, and correlated them with measures of gender equality in those countries.

Their findings, which will appear in the journal Science tomorrow, show that girls’ scores in mathematics were on an average 10.5 lower than boys’ scores, but displayed wide variations from country to country.

In Turkey, girls scored 22.6 below boys, but in Iceland, they scored 14.5 higher than boys. In countries with high gender equality such as Sweden and Norway, the gender gap in performance disappeared.

“The gap doesn’t exist in countries where men and women have access to similar resources and opportunities,” said professor Paola Sapienza, an economist at the Kellogg School of Management, who led the research.

The gender gap in mathematical skills had long fuelled a debate whether it could be attributed to biology or the social environment. Some scientists had argued for a biological explanation, pointing out studies that indicate men perform better in spatial tests, while women do better in verbal tests.

“Our findings shift the burden of evidence from biology to culture,” said Luigi Guiso, an economist at the European University Institute, Florence, and a team member.

“Culture is among factors that influence performance,” Guiso told The Telegraph. “So policies aimed at greater gender equality in society are likely to have impacts on educational achievements.”

India was not part of the 40-country analysis, but mathematics teachers in this country said its findings hold lessons for Indian students, parents and teachers.

“We need to demasculanise mathematics,” said Lalit Kishore, senior fellow at the Centre for Unfolding Learning Potential, Jaipur, an NGO trying to narrow the gender gaps visible in science and mathematics among students between nine and 14.

“Education has got to shake off this social baggage that projects science in general and mathematics in particular as something designed more for boys,” Kishore said.

Boys in India on an average have scored higher in mathematics than girls, although individual girls may often outshine boys, a veteran mathematics teacher said.

“When you create the right environment, girls perform as well as boys,” said Muthukrishna Mahadevan, secretary of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of India.

The study also revealed a gender gap in reading skills. In every country, girls performed better than boys — with average girls’ scores 32.7 points higher than boys’.

In more gender equal societies, girls are likely to gain an absolute advantage over boys, Sapienza said. But the researchers believe this won’t be at the cost of boys’ performance.

In gender equal societies, the findings suggest, girls and boys appear to deliver better performance. “There’s a positive spill-over effect on men. It doesn’t happen at the expense of men,” said Guiso.