Gender and Mathematics: recent development from a Swedish perspective
By Gerd Brandell, Gilah Lede, Peter Nystrom
In the past, research attention to gender equity has been mainly drawn to areas in which females appear disadvantaged and underrepresented. However, during the time of this study, more considerable attention has been placed on educational disadvantages faced by boys. Concerns of boys’ disadvantages, even in the fields of math and science which are traditionally perceived as male-dominated, are receiving increasing attention from the media and researchers in Sweden. Mats Björnsson (2005) noted that focusing on girls’ needs in the classroom could somehow be a reason for boys’ declining results in school. As a result, Björnsson suggested looking into pedagogical reform and other factors that influence education among boys. 747 participants were chosen in the questionnaire study, and 24 among them were selected for interviews. For a majority of the investigated items, such identifying which gender enjoys math more, more than half of the students replied with "no difference" between girls and boys. The study also revealed that female students are perceived as hard-working while their male classmates are associated with disrupting class.
A comparison of this Swedish study with Australian data shows that mathematics is also perceived as a mostly male gendered field at the secondary level. However, Australian students were more inclined to view mathematics as a female gendered domain when compared to Swedish students, and female students also enjoyed math more than Swedish students. The finding seems to agree with the assumption described by Elizabeth Fennema and Julia Sherman (1976): the less a female stereotypes mathematics as a male domain, the more likely she would be to study and learn mathematics.
It is quite interesting to notice that female students from different countries perceive math differently. The study did not investigate very deeply into this complexity. I have some teaching experience related to this. For years, I have heard stories that female students struggle more with high school math than boys in China. It is a common impression that math is a male-gendered subject. Interestingly, several students who hated and were scared of math in China found math quite enjoyable when learning in countries as the US and Canada. I would assume that it might be attributed to the less challenging curriculum used in newer schools in the West. This might be true for elementary level math, but I don’t see a huge difference in difficulty and depth between countries when comparing grade 11 text books.
Do you have similar teaching experiences, and what do you think?
In my experience, partly due to the more challenging elementary texts my school uses (although perhaps not compared to China), the challenge in the class comes from what the student and the teacher bring to the table. I think in general, elementary math teachers do not have enough preparation in the subject to teach and challenge students effectively, regardless of the student’s sex. I do think that there is the perception that it is a male-dominated subject, but I think that may be society’s bias and it doesn’t start from the students. There does seem to be a problem in popular culture with this, as there are several movies that depict mathematicians as male, boring and some seem to suggest that mathematics alone drove them mad!
ReplyDeleteI also wonder if the reason that students from China find math “easier” in North America is due to the “homework hostile” environment many schools have. Some schools can’t assign homework, either because the parents don’t want it, the students don’t do it or for other reasons. Could the lack of practice and repetition be an influence as well?
When I see the students I have met until now, who are mainly from other countries, I cannot find any significant differences among gender/sex. The interesting thing what I have read in some article is that the gap of students’ academic performance in mathematics between their sex would widen from elementary school to middle school. Although this article does not reveal the factor to explain this phenomenon, I suppose it might be so complicated by several factors, such as socio-economic status, that it is not easy to elucidate it. In addition to that, it might be different among countries. When I come to UBC and take the mathematics education courses I was surprised that many grad students and professors are female. It is totally different situation from universities in Japan, the most grad students and professors are male in the field of mathematics education.
ReplyDelete