The Home Court Advantage

It doesn't add up. Girls hold their own with boys in math and
science right up through sixth grade. So why do their interest,
performance, and confidence in those subjects decline once they hit
seventh grade?

The question rivals the Kennedy assassination in the number of
theories it's spawned. Accusing fingers have been pointed at cultural
norms, school policies, even genetic endowment.

But one answer to the problem lies closer to home. The type of
relationship that parents share, says Kimberly A. Updegraff, M.A.,
provides a telling clue as to what will happen to a girl's grades once
she enters junior high.

In egalitarian families--those in which parents divide
child-rearing duties with relative equality--girls' math and science
grades stay the course, Updegraff and colleagues report in the Journal of
Youth and Adolescence (Vol. 25, No. 1). It's in more traditional
families, rather, that performance takes a dive.

"Egalitarian families provide a protective factor,' says Updegraff,
a doctoral candidate at Pennsylvania State University. For one thing,
these families tend to ignore traditional gender roles. So girls are less
likely to feel that technical subjects are inappropriate or beyond
them.

Another key factor: dads. While moms in both types of families
interacted with daughters equally often, fathers in egalitarian marriages
spent seven more hours a week with their girls than did traditional dads.
That expands the range of interests and activities to which a girl is
exposed. Says Updegraff: "Father involvement really matters for
girls."