Slate: "How to Buck Up the Science Ladies"

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week, researchers at the University of Colorado published a psych experiment that seems almost too good to be true. They showed that two 15-minute writing exercises, administered to an intro physics class early in the semester, could substantially boost the scores of female students. Even more curious: the exercises had nothing to do with physics. Instead, students were asked to write about things that mattered to them, like creativity or relationships with family and friends. How could a few paragraphs on personal values translate into enduring better mastery of pulleys and frictionless planes?
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...Stereotype threat is a universal offender: It can sabotage white men on the basketball court or men more broadly on a test of social sensitivity. Whenever people are made to worry that they might confirm a negative assumption—for instance, that girls can't do math or that white men can't jump—they may be less likely to do their best. Frustratingly, the stereotypes they want so badly to avoid instead may instead become self-fulfilling....
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Of course, stereotype threat isn't the only reason that women remain underrepresented in math and science. Previously, some of the co-authors of the new study found that differences in background explained 60 percent of the disparity between their male and female students' physics scores, with the men more likely to have taken physics in high school. After giving the affirming writing exercises, the researchers did another analysis that controlled for differences in prior math scores, which correlated with who'd done more or less past math and physics coursework. This time, they found no statistically significant gender disparities in the scores for the standardized physics test or other physics exams.'