Reconceptualizing Gender Differences in Achievement among the Gifted DAVID LUBINSKI AND CAMILLA PERSSON BENBOW* Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, U.S.A. CHERYL E. SANDERS University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. Introduction Overthe past 30 years, manyof the unenlightened barri- ers preventing gifted women from achieving educational credentials and occupational status commensurate with their abilities have been removed. In many educational programs, comparable gender representation quickly ensued, esyecially in areas like law where many kinds of 4-year ciegrees are acceptable for admissions. Excep- tional performances by women onbar exams, law school grades anti honors followed, just as the protagonists who worked so hard to remove the aforementioned barriers had predicted all along. Gender-comparabilities in medical schools, both in representation and in perfor- mance, followed shortly thereafter. This trend served to reinforce further the well-grounded arguments for removing vender-discriminating educational barriers to begin with. That is, argumentsinitially stemming primar- ily from pclitical-ideological concerns now became but- tressed by economic and psychological justification: not only were women performing admirably in these areas, the disciplines themselves were benefiting from a more able student population. As a consequence of the greater number of women with exceptional academic credential: entering law and medicine, both disciplines have insur2d that their future leaders and practitioners will have greater competencies and sophistication. With such progress in mind, the attention naturally has shifte:i to the physical sciences (our area of con- centration:, where pronounced gender disparities still remain (Lick & Rallis, 1991; Eccles & Harold, 1992; Maple & Stage, 1991). Could similar benefits accrue for these discilines if more women entered and maintained a commitment to physical science educational/voca-  *Addresi correspondence to either Camilla P. Benbow or David Lubinski, Co-Directors of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at ISU, Department of Psychology, tional tracks? Why has comparable representation in the math/science pipeline not been achieved? Have we completely removed from the physical sciences the barriers that previously prevented women from entering law and medicine? Are there factors unique to the math/science pipeline that discourage women from entering and excelling within it? These questions, among many others, are being investigated through our research. Here we focus specifically on factors relating to educational/vocational choice, exceptional educational/vocational achievements and gender dif- ferences within the gifted population. Our research, however, is also aimed at program experimentation and refinement of well-known educational interventions. That is, in working with intellectually talented students, individually and in groups, we attempt to find and provide environments wherein their talents can best blossom and come to their full fruition. Understanding what those environments consist of and learning how to provide them are two of the more central goals of our applied research. We shall draw upon that work as well. Our work with mathematically and verbally preco- cious youth is particularly relevant to ascertaining the critical determinants of gender differences in math/sci- ence achievement. Noteworthy professional achieve- ments in the sciences tend to be within the exclusive pur- view of the highly able—people located within the top few percentage points of the distribution of intelligence. Given this, our Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) provides a data bank especially well suited to speak to male/female differences in educational achievement and choice, inasmuch as it contains large proportions of individuals, of both genders, who possess Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-3180. This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (MDR 8855625). 693