A beautiful myth? The gendering of being/doing ‘good at maths’

Mendick, Heather

doi:10.1080/0954025042000301465

Cited by 151 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Often, those who do not embody these privileged ideals are positioned as deficient and difficult to teach, and report that their teachers do not seem to care whether they learn mathematics (Walker, 2006). In addition, while a gendered achievement gap has greatly diminished in K-12 schools (Tate, 1997), many students still report that mathematics classrooms are masculinedominated spaces (Mendick, 2005;Rodd & Bartholomew, 2006).…”

Section: Interaction and Learning: Focus On Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning

Esmonde

2009

Review of Educational Research

177

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This review considers research related to mathematics education and cooperative learning, and discusses how teachers might assist students in cooperative groups to provide equitable opportunities to learn. I define equity in this context as the fair distribution of opportunities to learn, and argue that identity-related processes are just as central to mathematical development as content learning. I consider the link between classroom social ecologies, the interactions and positional identities that these social ecologies make available, and student learning. I close by considering unresolved questions in the field and proposing directions for future research.

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Section: Interaction and Learning: Focus On Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That being said, in contexts where mathematical success is associated with masculinity, girls must either construct ways to be mathematically successful while also maintaining conventional femininity (Mendick, 2005), or construct more masculine identifications.…”

Section: Ideas and Identities 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning

Esmonde

2009

Review of Educational Research

177

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“…The girls' science-related aspirations could be regarded as motivated by caring for and helping others, which research has previously found to be a strong motivator for many girls' career aspirations [36,92]. The link between healthcare and femininity has also been discussed elsewhere [93,94], with care being integral to dominant constructions of femininity [53,[95][96][97]. According to Skeggs [98], the centrality of care could be interpreted as having particular importance for girls/women from working-class backgrounds, who are constructed as needing to prove their respectability through caring performances.…”

Section: -Rifat (Interview June 2015)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sciencey Girls: Discourses Supporting Working-Class Girls to Identify with Science

Godec

2018

Education Sciences

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Abstract:Women from working class and some ethnic minority backgrounds continue to be underrepresented in science, particularly in areas such as physical sciences and engineering. Many find it difficult to see science as something that is "for them", which then has implications for their learning and participation in science. In this paper, I discuss findings from a U.K.-based qualitative study with 15 working-class girls, aged 11 to 13, from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Data were collected over the course of one academic year, through interviews and discussion groups with the girls and interviews with their science teachers, and analysed through a post-structural gender lens. The paper foregrounds five science-identifying girls, who negotiated their identification and engagement with science through the following discursive strategies: (i) rendering gender invisible, (ii) drawing attention to the presence of women in science, (iii) reframing "science people" as caring and nurturing, and (iv) cultural discourses of desirability of science. The findings contribute to the understanding of how working class girls-who are often "othered" and constructed as "unintelligible" within the dominant discursive regime of prototypical science-find identification with science possible. The paper discusses the affordances and challenges of each discursive strategy.

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“…Claudia's fear relates both to the gendered myth of mathematical genius (Mendick, 2005) and to the constant threat of just ‗not understanding it', and so of being judged inadequate/wrong (Buxton, 1981). Her experience of mathematics can be read as gendered in two further ways.…”

Section: Differing Lenses On 'The Problem Of Girls and Mathematics'mentioning

confidence: 99%

A beautiful myth? The gendering of being/doing ‘good at maths’

Cited by 151 publications

References 6 publications

Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning

Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning

Sciencey Girls: Discourses Supporting Working-Class Girls to Identify with Science

Mathematical stories: why do more boys than girls choose to study mathematics at AS‐level in England?

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