Journal of Educational Psychology

© 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 111, No. 6, 1119 –1130
0022-0663/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000340

Seeing Is Believing: Gender Diversity in STEM Is Related to

Mathematics Self-Concept
Christoph Niepel Matthias Stadler
University of Luxembourg Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Samuel Greiff
University of Luxembourg
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Although female students’ overall performance in mathematics is on a par with the performance of male
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students, female students tend to report lower levels of mathematics self-concept (MSC) than their male
schoolmates. With the present study, we examined for the first time whether occupational gender diversity
(i.e., a balanced gender ratio) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) statistically
predicted students’ MSC beyond well-established sources of self-concept formation as described in the
big-fish-little-pond effect framework. To this end, we applied linear mixed-effects models to large, represen-
tative data sets comprising 120,270 students from 23 countries. After controlling for individual-level and
school-level achievement, we found an interaction between students’ gender and country-level STEM gender
diversity, with female students reporting higher MSC in countries characterized by greater gender diversity.
Our results therefore suggest that a lack of societal STEM gender diversity negatively affects female students’
MSC formation and that good mathematics performance in itself does not protect female students from this
adverse trend. We interpret our findings against the background of self-concept theory and research as well
as psychological theories of gendered socialization.

Educational Impact and Implications Statement

In our study, we examined gender differences in students’ mathematics self-concept (MSC)—that is, their
perception of their own mathematics ability—across 23 countries. Whereas female and male students tend
to perform similarly well in mathematics, female students tend to rate their own mathematics ability
considerably lower than their male counterparts do in almost all countries. Our results revealed that the
ratio of women to men in scientific, technical, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) research jobs in a
country was significantly related to female students’ MSC, but this finding did not hold for the male
students. Female students reported lower MSCs when they lived in countries in which female scientists
were scarce—regardless of the female students’ mathematics achievement. High achievement in math-
ematics alone thus does not seem to be sufficient for improving female students’ MSC in societies with
gender inequities in STEM, further indicating the need to enhance gender diversity in STEM fields around
the world in order to provide role models for girls and women.

Keywords: gender equity, occupational gender diversity, mathematics self-concept, big-fish-little-pond

effect, international large-scale data

Members of each sex are encouraged in, and become interested in and Although mathematics achievement today is characterized by a
proficient at, the kinds of tasks that are most relevant to the roles they high degree of gender similarity in general (Hyde, Lindberg, Linn,
fill currently or are expected to fill in the future Ellis, & Williams, 2008), female students tend to consider them-
—Eleanor Maccoby (1966). selves less competent in mathematics than male students consider

This article was published Online First February 7, 2019.
Christoph Niepel, Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment, Uni-
versity of Luxembourg; Matthias Stadler, Department of Psychology,
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Samuel Greiff, Institute of
Cognitive Science and Assessment, University of Luxembourg.
Christoph Niepel and Matthias Stadler have joint first authorship. This
research was supported by a grant from the Luxembourg National Research
Fund (ATTRACT “ASKI21”; CORE “DynASCEL” C16/SC/11333571) to
Christoph Niepel and Samuel Greiff. All statements expressed in this
article are the authors’ and do not reflect the official opinions or policies of
the authors’ host affiliations or any of the supporting institutions. We thank
Lindie van der Westhuizen for her valuable support.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christoph
Niepel, Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment, University of
Luxembourg, 11, Porte des Sciences, 4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
E-mail: christoph.niepel@uni.lu

1119
 1120 NIEPEL, STADLER, AND GREIFF
themselves (OECD, 2015a). These gender differences even tend to
hold when female students share the same competence level in
mathematics (OECD, 2015a, for recent data from the Programme
for International Student Assessment [PISA]) or obtain similar or
better grades in mathematics compared with male students (Marsh
& Yeung, 1998). This gender gap is extremely problematic be-
cause one’s mental representation of one’s own mathematics abil-
ity (i.e., one’s mathematics self-concept; MSC) is key not only for
students’ well-being at school but also when it comes to predicting
academic outcomes that enjoy a high level of societal recognition
and remuneration (Guo, Parker, Marsh, & Morin, 2015; Marsh,
2006). This includes the pursuit of careers in the fields of science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; Guo et al.,
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2015). Consequently, gender differences in MSC to the disadvan-
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tage of female students arguably hamper current societal and
political efforts that are geared toward fostering gender equity in
STEM fields; namely, STEM gender diversity (i.e., increasing
women’s representation in STEM occupations).
Not only is there convincing conceptual evidence (as articulated
by different theories of gendered socialization; e.g., Eagly &
Wood, 2012; Eccles, 1994) but also initial empirical evidence that
the degree of gender diversity in STEM fields in a given society
may have a considerable impact on students’ MSC (Else-Quest,
Hyde, & Linn, 2010). Self-concept theory and research has exten-
sively focused on social comparison and frame-of-reference ef-
fects as determinants of MSC. Intriguingly, however, there have
been no comprehensive attempts in such research to incorporate
societal-level gender diversity in STEM into established models of
students’ MSC formation. Consequently, it is yet an open question
whether and to what extent the experience of societal-level gender
diversity in STEM is associated with students’ MSC beyond
well-known concurrent sources of MSC on an individual or school
level.
In the current study, we drew on large cross-national data sets
from PISA and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in an attempt to answer this
compelling question. To this end, we brought together two re-
search strands that—to the best of our knowledge— have never
before been studied simultaneously. These are (a) cross-national
research on the formation of academic self-concept through social
comparison effects (e.g., Marsh & Hau, 2003; Seaton, Marsh, &
Craven, 2009) and (b) cross-national research on the impact of
societal STEM gender equity on STEM-related beliefs and atti-
tudes (e.g., Else-Quest et al., 2010; Miller, Eagly, & Linn, 2015).
Theoretical Background
Shavelson, Hubner, and Stanton (1976) defined self-concept as
a personal perception of oneself that is shaped by one’s experience
with the environment and thus strongly reinforced by the environ-
ment and significant others (p. 411). Thus, academic self-concept
can be defined as the personal perceptions of one’s own abilities,
with MSC reflecting a person’s self-perception in mathematics
(Shavelson et al., 1976). Previous research has repeatedly demon-
strated that social comparisons and frames of reference (Festinger,
1954; Mussweiler, 2003) play prominent roles in the formation of
academic self-concepts such as MSC (e.g., Huguet et al., 2009;
Wheeler & Miyake, 1992). Accordingly, students with comparable
achievement develop different MSCs depending on which frame
of reference is available to them to evaluate their performance. For
instance, students enrolled in high-ability schools typically report
lower levels of academic self-concept than equally able students
enrolled in lower ability schools. This phenomenon is known as
the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE; Marsh, 1987). The BFLPE
framework claims a social comparison effect of achievement
on academic self-concept formation, which is typically studied
through multilevel regression models that take two different eco-
logical levels into consideration. Specifically, (a) while controlling
for the positive effect of achievement on academic self-concept on
the individual student level (e.g., higher achieving students in
mathematics will have higher MSC), (b) school-average achieve-
ment negatively predicts academic self-concept (i.e., the BFLPE;
e.g., the higher the mathematics achievement of one’s frame of
reference in general, the lower one’s MSC). At the core of the
BFLPE framework thus stand two assumed effects on academic
self-concept formation: a positive effect of higher individual
achievement and a negative frame-of-reference effect of higher
school-average achievement. The BFLPE framework has been
extensively validated, among other approaches, by evaluating it
with cross-national large-scale data (e.g., Marsh & Hau, 2003;
Seaton et al., 2009). It can thus explain important mechanisms of
academic self-concept formation on the individual level and on the
school level (see also Marsh, 2006). However, the BFLPE frame-
work alone cannot explain why female students with comparable
mathematics achievement tend to report lower levels of MSC than
male students do (see, e.g., OECD, 2015a).
Turning to this conundrum, the notion that female students’
gendered socialization experiences can largely explain such gender
differences—through perceived societal norms or feedback and the
expectations of socializers such as parents or teachers—is virtually
undisputed in self-concept theory and research (Trautwein &
Möller, 2016). Indeed, previous cross-national research has al-
ready shed light on the potential impact of gender (in)equities in a
given society on its people’s cognitive ability (Bonsang, Skirbekk,
& Staudinger, 2017), mathematics achievement (Else-Quest et al.,
2010; Guiso, Monte, Sapienza, & Zingales, 2008), as well as
STEM-related affect, attitudes, and beliefs (Else-Quest et al.,
2010; Miller et al., 2015; see also Stoet, Bailey, Moore, & Geary,
2016) including MSC (Else-Quest et al., 2010). Else-Quest et al.
(2010) examined various relations between different indicators of
societal gender equity on the one hand and cross-national gender
differences in students’ mathematics achievement, beliefs, and
attitudes on the other. They found that women’s representation in
research jobs (operationalized as the percentage of women in
research positions across a number of different fields) emerged as
the strongest single predictor of gender differences in MSC (␤ ⫽
|0.60|, p ⬍ .01; R2 ⫽ .36), such that countries with larger propor-
tions of women participating in research exhibited smaller gender
gaps in MSC (Else-Quest et al., 2010). Naturally, the question that
arises is: What are the mechanisms behind the finding that socio-
cultural factors such as gender diversity in research positions are
related to students’ individual MSC? In the remainder of this
article, we refer primarily to Eagly and Wood’s (1999, 2012, 2016)
social role theory and Eccles and colleagues’ (Eccles et al., 1983;
Eccles, 1994; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992) expectancy-value frame-
work to shed light on the psychological mechanisms behind gen-
dered socialization, which may cause STEM gender diversity on a
societal level to affect students’ individual MSC formation.
 STEM GENDER DIVERSITY AND MATHEMATICS SELF-CONCEPT
Social Role Theory
Social role theory focuses on the notion that similarities and
differences in the behavior, beliefs, and affect of men and women
reflect gender role beliefs, which are primarily rooted in the
distributions of men and women across various social roles in their
society (Eagly & Wood, 2012, 2016). Specifically, gender role
beliefs are shaped when people encounter the behavior of women
and men in their everyday lives. This means that individuals
observe women and men’s behavior and conclude that women and
men are equipped with corresponding dispositions (Eagly &
Wood, 2012). According to social role theory, women and men’s
division of labor in a society thereby serves as a prominent source
of such observations (Eagly & Wood, 2012). Gender role beliefs
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shape gender similarities and differences in affect, cognition, and
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behavior through different processes; for instance, through inter-
nalized self-standards (Witt & Wood, 2010) or others’ expecta-
tions (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992) against which individ-
uals regulate their behavior (Eagly & Wood, 2012). Accordingly,
people living in societies that are characterized by low STEM
gender diversity should be more inclined to incorporate the gender
role belief that STEM fields are reserved for men only, thus
preventing female students from pursuing careers in such fields
and therewith sustaining gender inequity in STEM occupations. In
the same vein, Miller and colleagues (2015) examined the relation
between societal STEM gender diversity on the one hand (opera-
tionalized as women’s representation in tertiary science education
and science careers) and individuals’ explicit and implicit gender-
science stereotypes on the other hand. They indeed found that
people living in countries that were characterized by a higher
degree of gender diversity in STEM occupations endorsed fewer
gender-science stereotypes that connected science with men more
than with women (Miller et al., 2015). Miller and colleagues
(2015) argued that in order to change persisting gender-science
stereotypes, people need to either directly observe (e.g., through
social interactions) or indirectly observe (e.g., through mass me-
dia) multiple and mutually reinforcing examples of counterstereo-
typical women. Thereby, female students’ exposure to only a few
female role models in STEM might be insufficient to change the
persisting stereotypes because such role models might be rejected
as atypical (Miller et al., 2015; see also Richards & Hewstone,
2001).
Expectancy-Value Framework
The expectancy-value framework by Eccles and colleagues
(1983) focuses on students’ achievement-related decisions (i.e.,
whether or not to continue taking mathematics; Wigfield & Eccles,
1992) as well as on gender disparities in (mathematics-related)
educational and occupational choices (Eccles, 1994). On the basis
of historically older motivational frameworks (e.g., Atkinson,
1957), Eccles et al. (1983) developed and tested this framework,
which explicitly adopts a social– cognitive perspective in encom-
passing multiple factors from different ecological levels such as
sociocultural factors, characteristics of significant adult figures, as
well as students’ characteristics (Eccles, 1994; Wigfield & Eccles,
1992). At the core lies the assumption that students’ performance,
persistence, and educational and occupational choices are deter-
mined by their expectations of success and the value they attach to
the various options available (Eccles, 1994, p. 587). According to
1121
Eccles et al.’s (1983) framework, young learners’ expectations of
success and the value they attach to mathematics are affected by
the overall cultural milieu (e.g., women’s representation in STEM
occupations in a given society) as well as by the beliefs, stereo-
types, and behaviors of important socializers (e.g., parents and
teachers). Young learners’ individual perceptions of socializers’
attitudes and expectations for them as well as their perceptions of
activity stereotypes and gender roles (e.g., through a gendered
division of labor) shape their expectations of success and values.
Their individual aptitudes and previous achievement-related expe-
riences (e.g., mathematics grades or test scores) also exhibit an
impact on the expectations of success and values they attach to
mathematics as well as their own interpretations of these experi-
ences (e.g., seeing one’s success as a consequence of one’s hard
work vs. one’s talent; Eccles, 1994; Jacobs, Davis-Kean, Bleeker,
Eccles, & Malanchuk, 2005; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992).
Notably, expectations of success and academic self-concept
have been shown to be empirically directly linked to each other
and can thus be collapsed into a single construct (Eccles, 2009;
Trautwein & Möller, 2016). Accordingly, Eccles et al.’s (1983)
framework has been frequently used to systematize various find-
ings in self-concept research (e.g., Arens, Yeung, Craven, &
Hasselhorn, 2011). The expectancy-value framework has found
strong empirical support to date (Frome & Eccles, 1998; Jacobs et
al., 2005; Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2002), and with expectation of
success (academic self-concept) at its core encompassing different
intertwined ecological levels, this framework may be particularly
useful for researchers who would like to examine whether societal
gender inequity in STEM adversely predicts (female) students’
MSC formation. Thereby, Eccles et al.’s (1983) framework is
consistent with social role theory (Eagly & Wood, 2012) in pre-
dicting that female students should report lower levels of MSC
when they live in societies in which fewer women work in STEM
fields (Else-Quest et al., 2010). In addition, the Eccles et al. (1983)
framework also highlights mathematics aptitude and achievement-
related experiences as influential sources of MSC and thus offers
an integrative framework from which to examine both STEM
gender diversity and mathematics achievement (as claimed by the
BFLPE framework; Marsh, 1987) as predictors of (female) stu-
dents’ MSC formation.
STEM Gender Diversity and the Formation of
Mathematics Self-Concept
In a nutshell, both social role theory (Eagly & Wood, 2012) and
the expectancy-value framework (Eccles et al., 1983) provide
important insights into how the degree of gender diversity in
STEM occupations in a given society might impact students’
MSC. A society’s gender diversity in STEM jobs might shape
people’s beliefs and attitudes (including stereotypes). Parents,
family members, teachers, or other socializers might in turn com-
municate gendered expectations and attitudes toward STEM (e.g.,
attitudes toward women’s occupational roles and abilities in math-
ematics) to the younger generation of learners in and outside of
school. In addition, female students may perceive that mathematics
is a “male” domain through direct (e.g., lack of female family
members working in STEM fields) or indirect (e.g., media appear-
ance of men in STEM) observations. Taken together, these mech-
anisms should have an influence on students’ MSC formation,
 1122 NIEPEL, STADLER, AND GREIFF
which favors gender differences in MSC to the disadvantage of
female students. In addition, previous cross-national research
(Else-Quest et al., 2010; Miller et al., 2015) has shown that
occupational gender diversity is indeed linked with STEM-related
beliefs and attitudes such as MSC. However, cross-national re-
search that has comprehensively examined the combined value of
societal gender diversity in STEM, mathematics achievement, and
gender to develop an overall better understanding of academic
self-concept formation as well as gender differences in MSC has
yet to be conducted. We designed the present study to fill this gap.
The Present Study
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In the present study, we drew on large and representative inter-
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national data sets from 23 countries to examine for the first time
whether including gender diversity in STEM occupations at a
national level would enhance statistical predictions of students’
MSC in a BFLPE framework. Previous research has already dem-
onstrated the relation between occupational gender diversity and
students’ STEM-related beliefs and attitudes (Else-Quest et al.,
2010; Miller et al., 2015). However, the unique contribution of the
present study is that we integrated gender, individual achievement,
school-level achievement, and societal gender diversity in STEM
into one comprehensive model in which we statistically predicted
MSC. In other words, we integrated STEM gender diversity (op-
erationalized as the percentage of women in STEM research po-
sitions in a given society) as a statistical predictor at the country
level into the BFLPE framework. The present study thereby ex-
tends existing cross-national research on the BFLPE framework
(e.g., Marsh & Hau, 2003) by adding societal STEM gender
diversity, and it extends existing cross-national research on soci-
etal STEM gender equity (e.g., Else-Quest et al., 2010) by adding
mathematics achievement (on an individual and school level) as a
statistical predictor of students’ MSC. To this end, we investigated
potential determinants of MSC formation on three different eco-
logical levels (individual, school, and country) simultaneously, and
thus, we were able to formulate the following four hypotheses:
First, we hypothesized that we would replicate the previous
finding in which female students reported lower levels of MSC
(Hypothesis 1). Second, we expected mathematics achievement to
be positively related to MSC on the individual level (Hypothesis
2). Third, while controlling for gender and individual-level
achievement, we expected to detect a BFLPE; that is, we expected
to find that school-average achievement in mathematics would be
negatively associated with students’ MSC on the school level
(Hypothesis 3). Fourth, while controlling for gender as well as
individual-level and school-level achievement, we expected to find
an interaction between students’ gender and societal STEM gender
diversity. Specifically, we expected female students to report
higher levels of MSC in societies where women’s participation in
STEM research positions is higher than in countries where pre-
dominantly men work in such positions (Hypothesis 4).
In order to eliminate alternative explanations for the relation
between women’s representation in STEM and students’ MSC, we
added other individual and national attributes as covariates to all
our analyses. First, we controlled for students’ socioeconomic
status (SES) because many of the various relations found in
educational research can be explained, at least partially, by the
effects of SES (for a detailed summary, see Jeynes, 2002). In this
way, students from lower SES families might underestimate their
mathematics abilities in comparison with their peers (e.g., Preckel,
Goetz, Pekrun, & Kleine, 2008). On the country level, we added
the countries’ gross domestic product (GDP) and human develop-
ment index (HDI) as covariates to account for cross-national
differences in economic development as well as in average edu-
cation and development. Both GDP and HDI have been shown to
be related to individual differences in PISA across countries and
could thus influence our results (Cheung & Chan, 2008; Yu, 2012).
Finally, we controlled for the general participation of women in the
countries’ workforce in all models to avoid potentially confound-
ing women’s occupations in STEM with the general presence of
women in the labor market.
Method
Participants
Data on individual and school levels were drawn from the 2012
cycle of PISA (OECD, 2014), an ongoing international project in
which the academic competencies of 15-year-old students around
the world are assessed. PISA has been run by the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2000. The
reading, mathematics, and science skills of a new international
sample of 15-year-olds are assessed every 3 years. In addition,
students are surveyed with regard to their beliefs and attitudes
toward one particular subject (reading, mathematics, or science),
with the subject rotating across cycles. The samples are fully
representative of the participating countries with regard to a vast
range of sociodemographic factors (see OECD, 2014, for full
details on recruitment, sampling, and procedures). The complete
data set is available for free online (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/).
The PISA 2012 data were collected from March, 2012 to June,
2012 and released in May, 2013. Mathematics was the focus of
the 2012 wave, which is why we selected the 2012 data set for
our analyses. In total, the PISA 2012 assessment included
485,490 students from 65 countries and economies. In this
study, we were able to use data from 23 countries (see the
Measures section), leaving us with a total sample size of
120,270 students. The countries and their respective sample
sizes are presented in Table 1.
Measures
Women’s representation in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM gender diversity). Data for women’s
occupational representation in STEM were obtained from the
UNESCO website (http://data.uis.unesco.org/) from the table la-
beled “Researchers by age, sector of employment and sex (Head
Count)” in the year 2011. The UNESCO data were released in July
2011. This variable was used as a proxy for STEM gender diver-
sity on a societal level. The values represent the percentage of
women among individuals employed as researchers in STEM
fields in 2011. The academic domains included in the data are
based on the definition of “science” as well as “engineering,
manufacturing and construction” by UNESCO (1997), including
all subdisciplines of the life sciences, physical sciences, mathe-
matics and statistics, computing, engineering and engineering
trades, manufacturing and processing, and architecture and build-
 STEM GENDER DIVERSITY AND MATHEMATICS SELF-CONCEPT 1123

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for All Main Variables by Country

Average MSC Average mathematics achievement

% of women
Country N Female Male d Female Male d in STEM

Bulgaria 5,282 ⫺.07 .00 .18ⴱ 442.47 441.87 ⫺.01 41.25

Colombia 9,073 .02 .13 .29ⴱ 372.63 401.46 .39ⴱ 26.65
Costa Rica 4,602 ⫺.02 .14 .37ⴱ 394.52 419.38 .38ⴱ 33.80
Czech Republic 5,327 ⫺.14 .02 .31ⴱ 513.66 525.96 .13ⴱ 20.60
Estonia 4,779 ⫺.03 .06 .20ⴱ 519.66 523.99 .05ⴱ 32.00
Greece 5,125 ⫺.03 .13 .34ⴱ 449.80 458.02 .09ⴱ 30.10
Hungary 4,810 ⫺.12 .02 .31ⴱ 479.52 491.90 .14ⴱ 22.20
Japan 6,351 ⫺.36 ⫺.17 .47ⴱ 525.37 545.77 .22ⴱ 8.85
Kazakhstan 5,808 .20 .19 .00 431.34 431.74 .01 47.60
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Korea 5,033 ⫺.25 ⫺.13 .32ⴱ 544.94 562.31 .18ⴱ 18.55

⫺.07 .24ⴱ
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Lithuania 4,618 .05 478.80 478.57 .00 38.45

Latvia 4,306 ⫺.07 .00 .15ⴱ 496.14 494.74 ⫺.02 40.00
Montenegro 4,744 ⫺.11 .01 .26ⴱ 405.57 407.23 .02 46.85
Malaysia 5,197 .06 .04 ⫺.05 426.39 418.76 ⫺.09ⴱ 48.20
Netherlands 4,460 ⫺.06 .13 .42ⴱ 513.60 522.33 .09ⴱ 21.60
Poland 4,607 ⫺.09 .02 .22ⴱ 519.08 522.23 .03 28.65
Portugal 5,722 ⫺.11 .02 .29ⴱ 478.34 490.75 .13ⴱ 36.10
Romania 5,074 ⫺.01 .04 .16ⴱ 444.54 447.09 .03 42.10
Russian Federation 5,231 .02 .08 .13ⴱ 483.68 481.73 ⫺.02 39.20
Serbia 4,684 ⫺.12 ⫺.03 .17ⴱ 441.89 453.71 .13ⴱ 43.90
Slovak Republic 4,678 ⫺.16 ⫺.01 .36ⴱ 480.73 490.12 .09ⴱ 35.85
Slovenia 5,911 ⫺.10 .04 .33ⴱ 483.39 485.40 .02 29.00
Turkey 4,848 ⫺.05 .00 .10ⴱ 441.79 455.57 .15ⴱ 30.35
Average 5,229.13 ⫺.07 .03 .23ⴱ 468.17 476.11 .11ⴱ 33.12
Note. MSC ⫽ Mathematics Self-Concept (M ⫽ 0, SD ⫽ 1); STEM ⫽ Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; d ⫽ Cohen’s d.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .01.

ing. For a full list of the subdisciplines, see UNESCO (1997). For
the professions that were included, UNESCO adopted the OECD’s
(2015b) definition by classifying researchers as “professionals
engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge (who
conduct research and improve or develop concepts, theories, mod-
els, techniques, instrumentation, software or operational methods)”
(UNESCO, 2017). For our analyses, we used head counts rather
than full-time equivalents. Head counts were chosen rather than
full-time equivalents because we were interested in the actual
number of women in STEM. Because women are more likely to
work part time (Ñopo, Daza, & Ramos, 2012; Weichselbaumer &
Winter-Ebmer, 2005), the use of full-time equivalents would un-
derestimate STEM gender diversity. Only the 23 countries that
participated in PISA and provided data on STEM gender diversity
were included in our analyses.
Mathematics self-concept (MSC). The scale that was used to
assess MSC in PISA 2012 was directly adopted from PISA 2003
(OECD, 2005, 2014) and has been used in various studies since it
was first published. It was based on the Self-Description Ques-
tionnaire (SDQ; Marsh, 1990), which is considered to be one of the
best self-concept instruments available (e.g., Byrne, 2002). As for
all PISA questionnaires, the items were translated into the respec-
tive languages for each participating country. Originally, eight
MSC items were piloted in the international field trial, and five
were retained for the main study. Detailed information on the item
response theory parameters used for scaling can be found in the
PISA 2003 technical report (OECD, 2005).
The PISA 2012 Student Questionnaire that we used in this study
included the final five items for assessing students’ MSC. Students
were asked to rate their agreement with statements such as “Math
is one of my best subjects” on a 4-point Likert scale. The OECD
aggregated the answers to the five items into a latent factor score
(with higher scores indicating higher MSC; see OECD, 2014, for
further details), which we used in our analyses. The scale showed
high internal consistency with a median Cronbach’s alpha of .89
across all OECD countries (OECD, 2014).
Mathematics achievement. PISA assessed students in multi-
ple areas of mathematics achievement. Because mathematics was
the major domain in 2012, the assessment included a total of 131
items covering the subdomains of Change and Relationships,
Quantity, Shape and Space, and Uncertainty and Data. The scores
were scaled so that the OECD average in each domain (mathe-
matics, reading, and science) was 500, and the standard deviation
was 100 (see Stanat et al., 2002). The PISA data file provides five
sets of plausible values for latent mathematics ability derived with
item response theory (Kaplan & Su, 2016; OECD, 2014). All
analyses including mathematics achievement were thus calculated
separately for each of the five plausible values, as suggested by the
OECD (2009). The results were then aggregated to produce the
final results reported in this study. The scale showed a very good
median internal consistency of ␣ ⫽ .91 for the complete scale
(OECD, 2014). In order to estimate the BFLPE, we calculated the
mean of students’ mathematics achievement separately for each
school in the data set.
Control variables.
Socioeconomic status (SES). Information on individual dif-
ferences in students’ socioeconomic status was obtained from the
PISA 2012 data, which contained an index of economic, social,
 1124 NIEPEL, STADLER, AND GREIFF
and cultural status (OECD, 2014). The variables comprising this
index included: (a) home possessions, comprised of all items on
the “family wealth possessions,” “cultural possessions,” and
“home educational resources” scales as well as “books in the
home” recoded into a four-level categorical variable (fewer than or
equal to 25 books, 26 –100 books, 101–500 books, more than 500
books), (b) parents’ highest occupational level, and (c) parents’
highest educational level expressed as years of schooling. The
scale is well established as an indicator of SES and has been used
in PISA since 2003. The reliability for the SES score ranges from
.56 to .77, and the internal consistency for the pooled OECD
sample with equally weighted country data is .69. For more details,
please refer to the section on SES in the PISA 2012 technical
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manual (OECD, 2014), which provides exhaustive details on the
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
computation, distribution, and psychometric quality of the index.
Gross domestic product (GDP). Countries’ GDP in 2011 was
obtained from data provided by the World Bank (https://data
.worldbank.org/). The GDP is a monetary measure of the market
value of all final goods and services produced in that year in U.S.
dollars (for more information, see http://www.worldbank.org/).
Human development index (HDI). Countries’ HDI values in
2011 were obtained from data provided by the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP; http://hdr.undp.org/en/data).
The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabil-
ities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development
of a country rather than economic growth alone. The index is a
measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human
development: a long and healthy life (life expectancy at birth),
being knowledgeable (expected and mean years of schooling), and
having a decent standard of living (gross national income per
capita). The HDI is the geometric mean of the normalized indices
for each of the three dimensions (for more information, see Klug-
man, 2011).
General participation of women in the workforce. Values for
the general participation of women in the workforce in 2011 for
each country were also obtained from data provided by UNDP
(http://hdr.undp.org/en/data). The data represent the participation
of women over the age of 15 years in the overall workforce in
percent (for more information, see Klugman, 2011).
Statistical Analysis
All analyses were conducted in R 3.4.0 (R Core Team, 2013).
To account for the nested structure of the data (students nested in
schools nested in countries), we modeled students’ MSC using
linear mixed-effects models (LMMs) with maximum likelihood
estimation (lme4 package; Bates, Mächler, Bolker, & Walker,
2015). LMM is an extension of the linear model in which the linear
predictor contains random effects in addition to the usual fixed
effects, making it well-suited for analyzing nested data (for an
introduction to LMM, see Demidenko, 2013). Students’ school and
country were both entered into the model as random effects and all
other variables as fixed effects. Model fit was estimated by com-
puting changes in the explained variance for both the fixed effects
(marginal R2) and the combination of fixed and random factors
(conditional R2) using the formulas suggested by Nakagawa and
Schielzeth (2013). The different model fits were compared with
␹2-difference tests. The magnitude of effect sizes was categorized
in accordance with Cohen’s (1988) guidelines. As suggested by the
OECD (2014), in all analyses, we used the individual student
weights available in the PISA data set to account for unequal
participation probabilities and explicit oversampling for national
reporting purposes. Students from densely populated areas were
thus given slightly lower weights than students from less populated
areas.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 shows the sample size, average MSC for male and
female students, average mathematics achievement, and STEM
gender diversity for all 23 countries represented in this study. As
can be seen from the table, female students exhibited a lower
average MSC than male students in all but one country. Female
students had a higher average MSC (M ⫽ .06) than male students
(M ⫽ .04) only in Malaysia. These mean differences were statis-
tically significant for all comparisons but Kazakhstan and Malay-
sia. Cohen (1988) provided guidelines for the interpretation of
effect sizes in which Cohen’s d values of 0.20, 0.50, and 0.80 are
considered small, medium, and large, respectively. We character-
ized effect sizes of d ⫽ 0.10 as negligible or close to zero (Hyde,
2005). Accordingly, the effect sizes were mostly small to medium,
with the strongest effects to the advantage of male students found
in Costa Rica, Japan, Netherlands, and the Slovak Republic. On
the other hand, female students had higher average mathematics
achievement scores than male students in five countries (Bulgaria,
Lithuania, Latvia, Malaysia, and the Russian Federation). More-
over, the effect sizes of the mean differences in average mathe-
matics achievement scores were considerably lower than for MSC
with only two moderate differences to the advantage of male
students (Colombia and Costa Rica). The percentage of women in
STEM varied from 8.85% (Japan) to 48.20% (Malaysia). The
average percentage of women in STEM across all 23 countries was
33.12%. Differences between male and female students’ MSC and
occupational gender diversity by country are also visually repre-
sented in Figure 1.
Main Analyses
We calculated four successive LMMs to test the four hypotheses
specified above. The dependent variable for all models was stu-
dents’ MSC. All models included students’ socioeconomic status
as well as countries’ GDP, HDI, and the general participation of
women in the workforce as control variables. Table 2 summarizes
the models.
In Model 1, students’ gender was added as a fixed effect to
estimate overall gender differences in MSC. As expected (Hypoth-
esis 1), male students exhibited a significantly higher MSC than
female students (␤ ⫽ 0.12, p ⬍ .001, a small effect size according
to Cohen, 1988). Thus, this result supported Hypothesis 1, indi-
cating that female students reported lower levels of MSC. Model
1 represented the baseline model for all consecutive analyses
(Rm2 ⫽ .05; Rc2 ⫽ .11).
In the next step (Model 2), students’ individual mathematics
achievement was added to Model 1 as a fixed effect. In this way,
the overall gender differences in MSC found in Model 1 could be
controlled for actual mathematics performance. Students’ individ-
 STEM GENDER DIVERSITY AND MATHEMATICS SELF-CONCEPT 1125
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Figure 1. Difference between male and female students’ MSC by country (%); STEM ⫽ science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics; MSC ⫽ mathematics self-concept (factor score); BGR ⫽
Bulgaria; COL ⫽ Colombia; CRI ⫽ Costa Rica; CZE ⫽ Czech Republic; EST ⫽ Estonia; GRC ⫽ Greece;
HUN ⫽ Hungary; JPN ⫽ Japan; KAZ ⫽ Kazakhstan; KOR ⫽ Korea; LTU ⫽ Lithuania; LVA ⫽ Latvia;
MNE ⫽ Montenegro; MYS ⫽ Malaysia; NLD ⫽ Netherlands; POL ⫽ Poland; PRT ⫽ Portugal; ROU ⫽
Romania; RUS ⫽ Russian Federation; SRB ⫽ Serbia; SVK ⫽ Slovak Republic; SVN ⫽ Slovenia; TUR ⫽
Turkey.

ual mathematics achievement was strongly related to students’
MSC (␤ ⫽ 0.44, p ⬍ .001). This result was in line with Hypothesis
2, indicating that mathematics achievement was positively related
to MSC on the individual level. Individual differences in mathe-
matics achievement did not fully explain the gender differences in
MSC, though. Gender remained significantly related to MSC (␤ ⫽
0.09, p ⬍ .001) even after we controlled for mathematics achieve-
ment (Rm2 ⫽ .19; Rc2 ⫽ .28). Model 2 represented the data substan-
tially better than Model 1 (⌬␹2 ⫽ 9384.30, ⌬df ⫽ 1, p ⬍ .001).
Average mathematics performance within each school was con-
trolled for in Model 3. In line with the predictions of the BFLPE,
school-mean mathematics achievement was negatively related to
students’ individual MSC with a small effect size (␤ ⫽ ⫺0.02, p ⬍
.001). Thus, students in schools with higher average mathematics
performances exhibited slightly lower MSC, in line with Hypoth-
esis 3 (Rm2 ⫽ .19; Rc2 ⫽ .28). This model represented the data
slightly better than Model 2 (⌬␹2 ⫽ 16.03, ⌬df ⫽ 1, p ⬍ .001).
In Model 4, STEM gender diversity in a given country was
added as a moderator of the relation between students’ gender and
their MSC. As expected, the percentage of women in STEM was
incrementally related to students’ MSC with a medium effect size
(␤ ⫽ 0.17, p ⬍ .001) over and above the other variables in the model.
Moreover, the interaction between the percentage of women in STEM
and gender was also significantly related to students’ MSC
(␤ ⫽ ⫺0.11, p ⬍ .001), with a small to medium effect size according
to Cohen’s (1988) conventions for moderation effects. Thus, country-
level STEM gender diversity moderated the differences in MSC
between male and female students (Rm2 ⫽ .19; Rc2 ⫽ .28). This model
represented the data better than Model 3 (⌬␹2 ⫽ 115.67, ⌬df ⫽ 1, p ⬍
.001). To explore this moderation further, we modeled the data for
male and female students separately. We found a small positive
relation between STEM gender diversity and female students’ MSC
(␤ ⫽ 0.08, p ⬍ .001) but no statistically significant relation for male
students (␤ ⫽ 0.02, p ⫽ .346). Thus, our results were in line with
Hypothesis 4, indicating that female students reported higher levels of
MSC in societies where women’s participation in STEM research
positions is higher than in countries where predominantly men work
in such positions.
 1126 NIEPEL, STADLER, AND GREIFF

Table 2 such that female students reported higher MSC in countries where
Summaries of All Linear Mixed Models more women held research positions in STEM fields. Else-Quest et
al. (2010) also found some unexpected results, which did not
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 support the general claim that gender equity (as assessed with
Fixed effects (␤) different indices) generally favors gender similarities in mathemat-
Gender .12ⴱⴱ .09ⴱⴱ .09ⴱⴱ .09ⴱⴱ ics achievement, beliefs, and attitudes. For instance, the authors
Individual MACH — .44ⴱⴱ .44ⴱⴱ .44ⴱⴱ found that gender differences in MSC were actually larger (to the
School-level MACH — — ⫺.02ⴱⴱ ⫺.02ⴱⴱ
Women in STEM — — — .17ⴱⴱ
disadvantage of female students) in countries that exhibited higher
Interaction — — — ⫺.11ⴱⴱ scores on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM; United Na-
Random effects (VC) tions Development Programme, 1995) and the Gender Gap Index
School .03 .05 .05 .06 (GGI; Hausmann, Tyson, & Zahidi, 2007). The GEM and GGI are
Country .03 .04 .04 .04
2
Rm .05 .19 .19 .19
both composite indices that are based on gender ratios in different
Rc2 .11 .28 .28 .28 domains, such as health, education, economics, and politics (for
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AIC 214750 205367 205353 205242 further details as well as for a discussion of these findings, see
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

BIC 214833 205460 205455 205362
Note. Dependent variable ⫽ Math self-concept; MACH ⫽ Math achieve-
ment; STEM ⫽ Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics;
VC ⫽ Variance components; R2m ⫽ marginal R2; Rc2 ⫽ conditional R2;
AIC ⫽ Akaike information criterion; BIC ⫽ Bayesian information crite-
rion.
ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .001.
Discussion
The formation of students’ academic self-concept does not
occur in a vacuum but rather in a larger social and structural
environment and is thus influenced by the culture students live in
(Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, & Jiang, 2017; Stephens, Markus, &
Fryberg, 2012). The aim of the present study was therefore to
identify the combined value of a society’s gender diversity in
STEM, achievement, and gender in statistically predicting stu-
dents’ MSC. To this end, we drew on large representative data sets
and brought together two research strands that had not previously
been studied simultaneously: cross-national research on the
BFLPE framework and cross-national research on STEM gender
equity. In all our analyses, we controlled for students’ socioeco-
nomic status as well as countries’ GDP, HDI, and the general
participation of women in the workforce. In line with our hypoth-
eses, we found that female students reported higher MSC in
countries characterized by higher gender diversity in STEM re-
search positions. Thus, the present study reveals the meaningful
extent to which gender diversity in STEM on a societal level is
related to female students’ MSC across 23 countries, regardless of
how well they perform in mathematics or which school they are
enrolled in. In showing this, our results suggest that societal STEM
gender inequity adversely impacts female students’ MSC forma-
tion across various countries and that good mathematics perfor-
mance by itself does not protect female students from this adverse
trend.
Societal Gender Diversity in STEM
and Students’ MSC
Else-Quest et al. (2010) already examined the relations between
various societal-level gender inequities and students’ mathematics
achievement, beliefs, and attitudes, including MSC. In doing so,
Else-Quest et al. (2010) found that occupational gender diversity
was the only predictor that was meaningfully and negatively
related to gender gaps in students’ MSC across different countries
Else-Quest et al., 2010). In fact, similar findings have been made
in related research using broader composite gender equity indices
at the country level (e.g., on mathematics anxiety: Stoet et al.,
2016; see also Stoet & Geary, 2018). In their critical review of the
use of different gender equity indices, Else-Quest and Grabe
(2012) stated that researchers must be mindful of how they use the
broad range of composite and nation-level indicators available for
multiple domains of gender equity. Thereby, they should choose
theoretically meaningful and relevant domain-specific indicators,
which reflect the mechanisms under investigation whenever pos-
sible (Else-Quest & Grabe, 2012, p. 139; see also Else-Quest &
Hamilton, 2018). Therefore, in our analyses, we decided to include
STEM gender diversity, which represents the country-level
domain-specific indicator that comes closest to assessing the so-
ciocognitive mechanisms suggested by social role theory and the
expectancy-value framework (see also Else-Quest et al., 2010, p.
123, for a discussion of the indicator they used: “gender equity in
research positions”).
The present study extended Else-Quest et al.’s (2010) study on
cross-national gender differences in MSC in multiple ways. Most
important, whereas Else-Quest and colleagues examined MSC and
mathematics achievement as separate outcome variables, in the
current study, we entered students’ mathematics achievement into
the regression equation as an additional predictor variable that
could go beyond occupational gender diversity in explaining dif-
ferences in students’ MSC. Specifically, we embedded STEM
gender diversity into the BFLPE framework and thus studied the
combined statistical effect of gender, individual-level achieve-
ment, school-level achievement, and country-level STEM gender
diversity on students’ MSC. Further, Else-Quest et al. used several
(broader composite as well as more domain-specific) indicators of
societal gender equity including occupational gender diversity,
which was operationalized as the percentage of research positions
held by women (Else-Quest et al., 2010). Different from Else-
Quest et al., we used a STEM-specific gender diversity indicator;
namely, occupational gender diversity in STEM research positions
(according to Klugman, 2011). Finally, we used more recent data.
More precisely, for MSC, we drew on data from PISA 2012,
whereas Else-Quest et al. used 2003 PISA data. Thus, the current
study not only extended Else-Quest et al.’s analyses on cross-
national gender gaps in MSC (as highlighted in the two previous
points) but also replicated one of its major findings in principle
(i.e., MSC on an individual level is related to societal occupational
gender diversity) almost one decade later.
 STEM GENDER DIVERSITY AND MATHEMATICS SELF-CONCEPT
Our results are in line with academic self-concept theory and
research (see, e.g., Marsh, 2006) as well as with social comparison
theory (Festinger, 1954; Mussweiler, 2003). In the current study,
we replicated the BFLPE framework cross-nationally (after con-
trolling for a number of covariates and gender), in revealing
positive relations between individual achievement and MSC on the
one hand and negative relations between school-level achievement
and students’ MSC (i.e., the BFLPE) on the other (see, e.g., Seaton
et al., 2009; see also Dai, Rinn, & Tan, 2013). Furthermore, our
results are in line with previous research on STEM gender inequity
and STEM-related beliefs and attitudes (Else-Quest et al., 2010;
Miller et al., 2015) as well as with psychological theories of
gendered socialization experiences as expressed in Eagly and
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Wood’s (2012) social role theory or Eccles et al.’s (Eccles, 1994;
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Wigfield & Eccles, 1992) expectancy-value framework. Both
highlight the impact of STEM role models or societal norms and
expectations, which were transmitted to future generations of
working citizens through important socializers or the mass media.
Finally, our research also stands on the shoulders of and is in line
with the work initiated by Baker and Jones (1993) on the gender
stratification hypothesis. The authors stated that gender inequity in
occupational and educational opportunity structures (which be-
come manifested in a lack of women in STEM occupations) shapes
numerous socialization processes, which causes gender differences
in mathematics-related outcomes (such as MSC) to the disadvan-
tage of female students. The gender stratification hypothesis is
thereby consistent with the expectancy-value framework and so-
cial role theory in maintaining that students’ ability perceptions
were shaped by the greater cultural milieu but focus more explic-
itly on gender inequities in occupational and educational opportu-
nity structures (Baker & Jones, 1993; see also Else-Quest et al.,
2010).
When it comes to the role of same-gender models for the
formation of female students’ STEM-related beliefs and attitudes,
we should note that previous research has in fact not always been
unanimous in stating that mere exposure to same-gender role
models necessarily evokes beneficial effects (Gilmartin, Denson,
Li, Bryant, & Aschbacher, 2007). However, the exposure to female
role models, who were perceived as being similar by other girls
and women, have been shown to enhance girls’ and women’s
achievements, beliefs, and attitudes (Marx & Ko, 2012; Zirkel,
2002). Indeed, as recently summarized by Cheryan et al. (2017),
there is ever-growing empirical evidence that exposure to role
models to whom other women can relate do increase women’s
interest in STEM, and that low gender diversity in STEM facili-
tates students’ perceptions that STEM fields are masculine cultures
that are more welcoming to men than women (Cheryan et al.,
2017). Thus, a lack of societal STEM gender diversity mirrors the
prevailing masculine culture in STEM occupations, thereby pre-
venting many girls and women (and arguably also counterstereo-
typical boys and men) from developing competence self-
perceptions in STEM that are as high as (most of) their male
counterparts.
In sum, the current study extends the understanding of gender
differences in MSC, demonstrating that even after a number of
important variables and covariates were controlled for, national
differences in societal STEM gender diversity emerged as a gen-
eralizable and meaningful statistical predictor of female students’
MSC across 23 countries. However, it was still outranked by
1127
individual mathematics achievement, which is typically conceived
as the strongest single predictor of MSC formation (see Marsh,
2006). Furthermore, we did not find any evidence that an increase
in STEM gender diversity could have an adverse impact on male
students’ MSC. Our findings thus help provide a better under-
standing of allegedly paradoxical findings on cross-national
mathematics-related gender gaps (cf. Stoet & Geary, 2018). For
instance, although Dutch students live in a country characterized
by high similarity between the genders in mathematics achieve-
ment (d ⫽ 0.09), female Dutch students reported considerably
lower MSC than the male students did (d ⫽ 0.42; see Table 1 and
Figure 1). Our results suggest that this pattern can be explained at
least in part by the highly imbalanced gender distribution in STEM
jobs at a national level in the Netherlands in that merely one out of
five STEM researchers was female (21.6%).
Limitations
Even though we interpreted our findings from the perspective of
existing theory and research and our data were temporally ordered
by design (the PISA data were gathered at a later time point than
the UNESCO data), causal inferences are unwarranted. Arguably,
the underlying relation between societal gender diversity in STEM
on the one hand and individual MSC on the other can be regarded
as reciprocally related across time; that is, students’ MSC predicts
students’ STEM career decisions at a later time point (e.g., Guo et
al., 2015), and the gender ratio in STEM fields also predicts
students’ MSC formation. In a similar vein, previous research has
repeatedly found that mathematics achievement and MSC are
reciprocally related across time; that is, higher achievement pre-
dicts a higher subsequent self-concept, and a higher self-concept
predicts higher subsequent achievement (e.g., Marsh & Martin,
2011; Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004). Thus, the underlying
interdependencies of the variables we examined are arguably much
more complex than depicted in the present study. Consequently,
future research should make an effort to further combine longitu-
dinal models from academic self-concept research (e.g., reciprocal
internal/external frame of reference model; Möller, Retelsdorf,
Köller, & Marsh, 2011; Niepel, Brunner, & Preckel, 2014) with
theories and frameworks of gendered socialization (e.g., Eccles,
1994).
In the present study, we used the percentage of women in
research positions in STEM in a given country made available by
UNESCO. This variable served as a proxy for societal STEM
gender diversity and thus closely reflects the mechanisms under
investigation as claimed by Eagly and Wood’s (2012) social role
theory and Eccles et al.’s (1983; Eccles, 1994; Wigfield & Eccles,
1992) expectancy-value framework. We found that STEM gender
diversity seems to play an important role in the formation of
students’ MSC in addition to the role that their actual mathematics
achievement plays. Our findings thus make a convincing case for
adding STEM gender diversity at the country level to established
models on academic self-concept formation (e.g., the original
two-level BFLPE framework) in order to better understand the
existing gender gap in MSC that functions to the disadvantage of
female students. However, we still found MSC variability that
could not be statistically explained by the variables examined in
the present study. To further enhance the predictive validity of our
model, future research could conduct more fine-grained analyses
 1128 NIEPEL, STADLER, AND GREIFF
to differentiate among diverse STEM fields (see Cheryan et al.,
2017, analysis on gender differences within STEM fields); for
example, in examining how the percentages of women employed
in jobs involving mathematics and statistics (or, e.g., in computer
science) in a given country are related to students’ MSC (or to their
computer-science self-concept, respectively). Furthermore, future
research should also consider reanalyzing our models with more
comprehensive STEM gender diversity data including STEM pro-
fessions that are located outside of research positions. Moreover,
women tend to be underrepresented in most areas of research
beyond STEM (see, e.g., Pashkova et al., 2013, for gender dispar-
ities in medical research). Therefore, it would be highly relevant to
investigate how our findings generalize to other fields.
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Finally, we analyzed countries that participated in the 2012
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PISA cycle and for which we had information on the percentage of
women in STEM research positions provided by UNESCO. The
resulting 23 countries were located in mainland Europe, Asia, and
the Americas. As such, but inevitably because we drew on PISA
data, our data were characterized by an imbalanced representation
of countries by continent (see http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/
pisa-2012-participants.htm). For some other countries, no match-
ing UNESCO data were available to us. Future cross-cultural
research is therefore indicated here.
Implications and Conclusion
Female students tend to underestimate their mathematical abil-
ities when they live in societies in which female scientist are
scarce. Our results therefore suggest that enhancing mathematics
achievement per se is not sufficient for improving female students’
MSC in societies with gender inequities in STEM. Barriers to
gender diversity in STEM need to be redressed at all levels—not
just in school—to ensure that efforts to move toward equity are
successful. Interventions must thus target various, intertwined lev-
els comprising structural conditions, media coverage, as well as
the beliefs and attitudes of socializers and students. Along these
lines, Wang and Degol (2017) recently carved out various
evidence-based recommendations for practitioners and policymak-
ers to improve STEM gender diversity and decidedly demanded
that efforts be increased, inter alia, to combat negative gender
STEM stereotypes or to increase the number of female role models
in STEM. For instance, at home and in school, parents and teachers
could communicate the idea that equivalent STEM performance
has been achieved between the genders and that STEM gender
diversity has increased in recent years in most societies (Wang &
Degol, 2017). Objects stereotypically associated with male inter-
ests should be eliminated from STEM classrooms so that students
learn not to think of STEM as a typically “male” domain (Cheryan
et al., 2017). In addition, the mass media should strive to create
more positive role models involving female STEM researchers so
that female students will more often encounter realistic images of
successful women in STEM to whom these students can relate
(Wang & Degol, 2017). Moreover, policy and educational stake-
holders must work to achieve STEM gender diversity in promoting
network opportunities for women in STEM (e.g., career fairs,
career days at school, mentoring programs at universities) aiming
to install a support system as well as a sense of connectedness for
women pursuing careers in STEM fields (Wang & Degol, 2017).
To conclude, our results strongly support the enhancement of
gender diversity in STEM on a societal level in order to help girls
and women develop an adequate sense of their competences, or in
the words of Sally Ride (2012), physicist and astronaut: “You can’t
be what you can’t see.”
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Received November 2, 2017
Revision received December 1, 2018
Accepted December 16, 2018 䡲