>>[...] anonymous search data found that Americans ask “Is my son gifted?” more than twice as often as “Is my daughter gifted?”, even though young girls are more likely than boys to be enrolled in gifted programmes in school. Parents also ask “Is my daughter overweight?” nearly twice as often as “Is my son overweight?”, even though boys are more likely to be fat.
The article's use of "even though" implies a counter-intuitive follow-on conclusion. However, only the opposite of their counter-arguments made sense: Americans are probably asking "Is my son gifted" because it's simply more obvious that young girls are generally more cognitively advanced than young boys at a similar age. In other words, parents need more help (from Google) to figure out whether their boys are gifted or not, which is strengthened by the article's point that girls are more than twice as likely to be enrolled in gifted programmes.
Similar logic can apply to the second query, although there's also the confounding effect (or strong bias depending on your POV) of American media's portrayal of girls and society's views of what constitutes overweight vs. normal body fat percentages.
>> Americans ask “Is my son gifted?” more than twice as often as “Is my daughter gifted?”, even though young girls are more likely than boys to be enrolled in gifted programmes in school.
> Americans are probably asking "Is my son gifted" because it's simply more obvious that young girls are generally more cognitively advanced than young boys at a similar age.
Be careful; you can't conclude that the girls are more cognitively advanced than the boys just from the fact of their being more heavily enrolled in gifted classes. Two very well-established results:
- American girls have better grades than American boys.
- American boys are more likely to have 700+ SAT subtest scores than American girls.
Which one of those is more similar to being "more cognitively advanced"[1], and which one is likely to get the school to treat them better?
Occam's razor suggests that parents ask about daughters being overweight because whether or not your daughter is overweight is important, while whether or not your son is overweight isn't.
[1] Boys are also more likely than girls to have very low scores. This is not at all relevant to gifted classes, though, because they shouldn't ever be considering very-low-ability students.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 17.9 ms ] threadThe article's use of "even though" implies a counter-intuitive follow-on conclusion. However, only the opposite of their counter-arguments made sense: Americans are probably asking "Is my son gifted" because it's simply more obvious that young girls are generally more cognitively advanced than young boys at a similar age. In other words, parents need more help (from Google) to figure out whether their boys are gifted or not, which is strengthened by the article's point that girls are more than twice as likely to be enrolled in gifted programmes.
Similar logic can apply to the second query, although there's also the confounding effect (or strong bias depending on your POV) of American media's portrayal of girls and society's views of what constitutes overweight vs. normal body fat percentages.
> Americans are probably asking "Is my son gifted" because it's simply more obvious that young girls are generally more cognitively advanced than young boys at a similar age.
Be careful; you can't conclude that the girls are more cognitively advanced than the boys just from the fact of their being more heavily enrolled in gifted classes. Two very well-established results:
- American girls have better grades than American boys.
- American boys are more likely to have 700+ SAT subtest scores than American girls.
Which one of those is more similar to being "more cognitively advanced"[1], and which one is likely to get the school to treat them better?
Occam's razor suggests that parents ask about daughters being overweight because whether or not your daughter is overweight is important, while whether or not your son is overweight isn't.
[1] Boys are also more likely than girls to have very low scores. This is not at all relevant to gifted classes, though, because they shouldn't ever be considering very-low-ability students.