A Reversed Gender Pattern? Mathematical Wellbeing Among Primary Students in Iran

For decades, researchers studying how children feel about mathematics have operated under a fairly consistent assumption: boys generally feel better about the subject than girls. This idea has been built on studies conducted mostly in Western countries, where girls often report higher anxiety, lower confidence, and a sense that they do not belong in the math classroom, even when their test scores match or exceed those of their male peers. The field of mathematics education has begun to look beyond simple test scores to understand "mathematical wellbeing," a concept that asks not just how well a student performs, but how well they are doing as a person while learning. This wellbeing is thought to come from fulfilling seven deep human needs during the learning process: feeling a sense of accomplishment, understanding the material, staying engaged, seeing the point of what they are learning, persisting through challenges, feeling positive emotions like joy or pride, and feeling supported by others.

The question of whether these patterns hold true everywhere has remained unanswered, largely because the research has not ventured far beyond Europe, North America, and parts of Asia. This gap is significant because the way boys and girls experience school can vary wildly depending on culture and how schools are organized. In many parts of the world, including the Middle East, the rules of schooling are different, and the social expectations for boys and girls are distinct. Understanding whether the "boys feel better than girls" rule is a universal truth or a cultural artifact requires looking at a place where the usual patterns might be flipped.

A team of researchers set out to explore this question in Iran, a country where the education system has been strictly separated by gender since 1979. In this system, boys and girls attend different schools from their first year of primary education. Furthermore, while boys have historically been expected to outperform girls in mathematics, recent international data has shown a surprising shift: Iranian girls have begun to match or even surpass boys in math achievement. This unique combination of single-sex schooling and a reversed achievement gap made Iran an ideal place to test if the feelings about math also reversed. The researchers wanted to know if Iranian girls, growing up in this specific environment, felt better about mathematics than boys, and if so, what those feelings looked like.

To find the answers, the researchers worked with 472 students, roughly half boys and half girls, from grades four through six in a mid-sized Iranian city. They used a survey designed to measure the seven aspects of mathematical wellbeing mentioned earlier. The survey asked students to rate how much they agreed with statements about their feelings toward math, such as whether they felt proud of their work, whether they understood the lessons, and whether they felt supported by their teachers. Because the survey was originally written in English, the team carefully translated it into Persian, testing it with a small group of students first to ensure the words made sense and felt natural in the local culture. Alongside the survey questions, the researchers asked the students to write a short, open-ended response describing what makes them feel good and function well when they are learning mathematics. This allowed the researchers to see not just the numbers, but the actual words and reasons the children gave for their feelings.

The results were striking and contrary to the patterns seen in most Western studies. Instead of reporting lower wellbeing, the girls in this study scored significantly higher than the boys on every single one of the seven measures. The difference was not just a tiny statistical blip; it was a clear and consistent trend across the board. The girls reported feeling more positive emotions, such as enjoyment and pride, and they felt a stronger sense of accomplishment and understanding than the boys did. In fact, the girls' responses were remarkably consistent with one another, suggesting a shared, positive experience of math, whereas the boys' responses were much more varied, with a wider spread of feelings that included a significant number of students who felt much less positive about the subject.

When the researchers looked at the written explanations, the reasons behind these numbers became even clearer. The girls spoke frequently about the joy of understanding a concept, the pride of solving a difficult problem, and the happiness of learning something new. They often connected these feelings to their teachers, describing how a kind explanation or a moment of clarity made them feel good. The boys, by contrast, tended to focus their positive feelings on getting the correct answer or receiving a high grade. Their accounts were narrower, centering on performance and results rather than the process of learning or the emotional satisfaction of understanding. While both boys and girls mentioned their teachers as a source of support, the girls were far more likely to describe their wellbeing as being tied to the relationship with the teacher and the personal meaning of the work, whereas the boys' sense of wellbeing was more tightly bound to the outcome of their tests.

One of the most interesting findings concerned the role of relationships. In many Western studies, girls often report that they feel better about math when they have friends to work with, while boys focus more on individual achievement. In this Iranian study, however, neither boys nor girls talked much about their peers. Instead, both groups described their social connection to math almost entirely through their teachers. This suggests that in the single-sex classrooms of Iran, where students spend their days listening to a teacher and working quietly, the teacher becomes the primary source of support and connection, overshadowing the role of classmates. The "relationship" part of mathematical wellbeing was the weakest area for everyone, but it was the girls who still managed to score higher than the boys, even in this area.

The researchers are careful to note that they cannot say for certain exactly why the girls felt better than the boys. The study design, which compared different schools for boys and girls, means that factors like the specific teachers, the neighborhood of the school, or the single-sex nature of the classrooms are all mixed together. It is possible that the single-sex environment removed the pressure of comparing themselves to boys, allowing the girls to feel more confident and engaged. It is also possible that the cultural shift in Iran, where girls are now achieving at high levels and are encouraged to pursue education and careers, has changed how they view their own potential. The study does not prove that single-sex schooling causes this result, nor does it claim that the findings apply to all of Iran or to older students. However, the data clearly shows that the pattern of girls feeling worse about math than boys is not a universal law of nature.

This discovery adds a new chapter to the story of gender and mathematics. It suggests that the feelings students have about math are shaped by their environment, their culture, and the specific conditions of their schooling. In a place where girls are outperforming boys and where the classroom structure is different, the emotional landscape of mathematics flips. The girls in this study found joy, pride, and a sense of purpose in their math classes, while the boys, on average, found less of these things. The study serves as a reminder that what we think is "normal" about how boys and girls feel about school is often just a reflection of the specific places we have looked so far. By looking in a new direction, the researchers found a different reality, one where the girls are not just doing well on tests, but are also thriving in their hearts and minds.