Authors dive into the gender debate

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers has stirred controversy on and off the Ivy League campus with his recent comments suggesting that women may not have the same ''intrinsic aptitude" as men when it comes to math and science. Three books reviewed by freelance writer and former educator John Budris tackle the topic of gender differences, what research says and what it means for parents and teachers as they work with children. The evidence is ambiguous about the adult brain, but the books -- and the research they cite -- underscore that male and female brains of children and teens function differently and mature on different schedules.

Primal Teen: What New Discoveries About the Human Brain Teach Us About Our Kids
By Barbara Strauch

Anchor, 242 pp. $13.95

Her two daughters' adolescence partly prompted Barbara Strauch's research and writing of Primal Teen. More times than she cares to remember, she was compelled to ask her daughters ''what were you thinking?" In ''Primal Teen," she sought to find out the answer.

Using a combination of observational studies, anecdotal evidence, and the latest brain scanning technologies, The New York Times medical science and health editor takes the reader on a journey that challenges the conventional attitude that adolescent turmoil is fundamentally psychological.

She instead explores the physical nature of the transforming adolescent brain, once thought to be a near-fixed template of the adult model.

She makes the convincing case that teen brains undergo the same kind of dramatic metamorphosis in adolescence as in the first two years of life. Her distilled thesis is that teenagers act Kafkesque -- from mature to morose hour by hour -- not from the fabled scapegoat of hormones, but because their brains are still trying to get all the wiring right. To further challenge the wits of parent and teacher, girls and boys mature at different rates.

Particularly in the pre-frontal cortex, that part of the brain that governs judgment, impulse control, and a sense of consequence, girls' trajectory of maturity takes a big leap beginning around eighth grade and progresses steadily through high school, Strauch explains. The pre-frontal cortex in boys doesn't seem to catch up until ages 18 through 24.

Strauch's ''Primal Teen" is not just a fascinating excursion into the darkened tunnel of the adolescent cranium, but also an enlightening handbook for parents.

Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
By Leonard Sax MD., Ph.D.

Doubleday, 352 pp., $24.95

Two decades ago, doctors and researchers presumed that the brains of boys and girls were fundamentally the same. The outgrowth of that erroneous assumption was that teaching both genders the same way, at the same age, would erase the gaps in achievement. Especially with the advent of various high-tech scans, however, the evidence that boys and girls have profoundly different brains is inescapable, according to Leonard Sax.

Gender gaps in subject areas have widened in the past 30 years, the author writes. The proportion of girls studying physics and computer science in college has dropped in half, according to the National Center for Research On Women. Boys are less likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, history, or music. Sax attributes this chasm to a crucial lack of understanding by educators as to the different ways male and female brains function -- a situation, he maintains, which if addressed differently, could close the gap. The most expedient remedy, according to Sax, is the return to same-sex schools.

Beyond the campaign for same-sex education, ''Why Gender Matters" is an instructive handbook for parents and teachers to discipline children in gender appropriate ways and to create ways to cope with the differences between boys and girls.

Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling
By Rosemary C. Salomone

Yale University Press, 287 pp., $29.95

In ''Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling," Rosemary C. Salomone, a former Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer and attorney, argues that the best evidence available proves that single-sex classrooms can break down gender stereotypes and benefit both boys and girls equally.

Girls in single-sex educational settings are more likely to excel in math, science, and information technology. Boys in single-sex schools are more likely to pursue interests in art, music, drama, and foreign languages. Girls and boys both have more freedom to explore disparate interests and abilities in single-gender classrooms, she maintains.

Her most convincing data come from urban schools. After 40 years and a kaleidoscope of compensatory programs and untold dollars, changing the academic performance of at-risk students is a failure, she contends. The exception is the single-gender school.

In her defense of same-sex education, she cites dozens of studies and comparisons in school systems across the world and underscores that simply assigning girls to one classroom and boys to another does not provide an incisive answer. In order to improve academic performance and broaden educational achievement, educators need to understand how girls' and boys' learn differently.