Are boys smarter than girls?

Such a question gets the heart pumping. Most people believe the question is ridiculous.

It hasn't always been that way. Even today, some believe that boys are indeed smarter than girls, that whites are smarter than blacks, that there are real differences in brain power across human groups.

In this project, you will look at some recorded IQ (intelligence quotient) tests for boys and girls in 37 eastern European primary schools. Your main purpose here is to explore the data to see if it is approximately normally distributed. Later in the course, you'll see whether the distribution of IQ for boys and girls are statistically different.

To see that this question of equality of the sexes is taken seriously, read this article from Forbes magazine that summarizes the issue on the IQ differences between the sexes

Whether or not there is truly a difference has an important effect in how we view the world, and in how we treat people, especially children. The following article on Gender Bias in the Classroom by Betsy Schoenbeck gives an overview of these important effects.

Does this question get your interest? Merely asking the question makes many people angry. Let's take a break for a bit from this seeming controversy. If you have some extra time (about 30 minutes or so), you may want to take this unofficial IQ test on the web

The notion of testing for intelligence is quite controversial and has a history of debate and argument. The article Racism, IQ and Down's Syndrome , by Chris Borthwick, covers some of the controversial issues surrounding IQ differences, especially as it concerns people with Down's Syndrome.