Publications by authors named "Sona C Kumar"

Consistent evidence shows that women are underrepresented across most Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields. Research indicates that early attitudes and gendered beliefs about mathematics can predict later achievement and academic choices in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and that children's attitudes are tied to parents' beliefs and interactions with their children surrounding math. To identify potential antecedents of gender differences, we examined whether there are differences between parents of sons and parents of daughters on factors in the home mathematics environment that influence early math experiences for young children.

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This study explores how caregiver-child scientific conversation during storybook reading focusing on the challenges or achievements of famous female scientists impacts preschoolers' mindset, beliefs about success, and persistence. Caregiver-child dyads (N = 202, 100 female, 35% non-White, aged 4-5, ƒ = .15) were assigned to one of three storybook conditions, highlighting the female scientist's achievements, effort, or, in a baseline condition, neither.

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Women are underrepresented in STEM fields across the world. We investigate a perceptual mechanism that may contribute to this gender disparity beginning in early childhood. We explore how visual information about the gender composition of a group of scientists impacts children's persistence on a STEM task and their evaluations of group members.

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