GIRLS%20AND%20BOYS%20AND%20EQUITY%20IN%20MATHEMATICS:%20TEACHERS

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GIRLS AND BOYS AND EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS BELIEFS
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THE ABC of NUMERACYriitta_at_soro.fi
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A basic belief underlying this presentation is
that females social learning and beliefs about
themselves with regard to mathematicsare
different from those of males. The entire field
of mathematics might be enriched if more young
females were given the opportunity to grow into
mathematical scholars and give their unique
contribution.
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University of TurkuDepartment of Mathematics
Male Female
Professors 6
Docents 22
Lecturers 8
Senior Assistants 6
Assistants 2
Total 44 5

• retrieved from http//www.math.utu.fi/henkilokunt
  a/

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Females have not elected to participate in
advanced mathematics courses or in
mathematics-related careers at the same level as
males have. Girls tend to underestimate their
math ability in school, even though their actual
performance is as good as or better than that of
the boys. Mathematics has been and continues to
be a critical filter to careers and occupations,
which are interesting, challenging, have high
status, and are usually well-paid.
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Elizabeth Fennema Mathematics is a unique
product of human culture. Permitting females to
understand this culture is important both for
their own appreciation of the beauty of
mathematics and the transmission of this culture
to future generations. Fennema, E. 1995.
Mathematics, Gender and Research. In B. Grevholm
G. Hanna (eds.) Gender and Mathematics
Education. Lund Lund University Press, 21-38.
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Defining Equity
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In this presentation the word equity is used
instead of equality. In some aspects "equality"
is not synonymous with "equity. Thus, rather
than striving for equality in the meaning of
sameness amongst girls and boys, teachers
should promote equity which reflects the needs
and strengths of both groups. Merriam-Webster
On-Line Dictionary
equity justice according to natural law or
right specifically freedom from bias or
favouritism
equality equal (1) of the same measure,
quantity, amount, or number as another 2)
identical in mathematical value or logical
denotation
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What is gender equity (equality)? Council of
Europe defines

• Gender equality means an equal visibility,
  empowerment and participation of both sexes in
  all spheres of public and private life.
• Gender equality is the opposite of gender
  inequality, not of gender difference.

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Gender equity in mathematics education

• Judgements on educational equity have been based
  on three different definitions of equality
• equal opportunity
• equal treatment
• equal outcome.

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(1) equal opportunity
Many teachers believe that equity has been
reached since there are no formal borders and
the co-educational school system provides equal
opportunity to elect mathematics. However there
are far more boys than girls in advanced math
classrooms.
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(2) equal treatment

• This second definition is also problematic.
  Teachers may believe that they treat boys and
  girls the same way. Classroom observations show
  that this does not prevail.
• Males interact more frequently with their
  teachers. Teachers have different achievement
  expectations and they vary their explanations for
  success and failures depending on the sex of the
  student.
• Even, if the teacher strives to equal treatment
  of girls and boys, girls and boys may perceive it
  differently.

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(3) equity as equal outcome

• If equity in mathematics is defined as equal
  educational outcome, there should not be gender
  differences in achievement or participation or in
  how males and females feel about themselves and
  mathematics.
• This third definition is consistent with the
  definition of equality Council of Europe has
  given i. e. to require equal visibility,
  empowerment and participation of both sexes.
• Equity in this sense has not been reached.

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The Gender Problem in Mathematics

• There are widely differing perceptions of what
  constitutes the so-called gender and mathematics
  problem. The starting point and the assumptions
  behind it are questionable.
• Ernest has listed five views of gender and maths
  problem. Each of the views is connected to a
  different educational ideology and to a different
  socially located interest group.
• Ernest, P. 1998. Changing Views of The
  Gender Problem in Mathematics. In V.
  Walkerdine, Counting girls out Girls and
  Mathematics (new edition) pp. 1-14. London Virago

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Five views of gender and maths problem

1. Fixed biological differences
2. Society needs workforce
3. The ablest women to be encouraged
4. Girls/women lack confidence
5. Distorted social construction of gender roles

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1. Fixed biological differences

• Fixed biological differences make males better at
  maths.
• Attempts at equal opportunities are undesirable
  political interventions in the natural state of
  affairs.

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2. Society needs workforceThe situation of
female under-participation should be improved for
benefit of society. Well-educated workforce of
both men and women is needed, even if, as many in
this group believe, females are inferior at
mathematics.

• 3. The ablest women to be encouraged
• Maths ability is inherited and primarily male. In
  the interest of mathematics this group want also
  the ablest women to be encouraged to progress as
  far as their nature will allow them.

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4. Girls/women lack confidence

• The gender and mathematics problem is due to the
  lack of confidence and poor mathematical
  attitudes of girls and women, i. e.
• it is an individual problem.
• The solution is to encourage and support girls
  and women more in mathematics.

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5. Distorted social construction of gender roles
Gender inequity is due to underlying sexism and
stereotyping in society in maths. Gendered
identities, gender roles, are socially
constructed and mathematics is stereotyped as
male and femininity as non mathematical.
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• If mathematics is understood to be
  stereotypically male and unfeminine, it means
  that girls must choose to be feminine or to
  choose to be successful at mathematics.
• For some women it is possible to opt for both,
  especially for those, who have been encouraged to
  develop their mathematical talents by significant
  male others (like their fathers) during the
  formative adolescent years, but for many others
  it is a strong barrier and an inhibiting force.

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A problem of the views of the utility of
mathematics?

• If we want more women to choose math-based
  careers it's not enough to try to raise girls'
  confidence levels. Their career choices are often
  based on human values. Girls, also boys, should
  be demonstrated how mathematically based sciences
  can improve the world.

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GIRLS AND BOYS AND EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS
TEACHERS BELIEFS
Some results of my study
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• The focus of my doctoral dissertation was to
  examine
• (1) teachers beliefs about differences of boys
  and girls as learners of mathematics, and
• (2) teachers beliefs about gender equity in
  mathematics education and how it could be
  reached.
• Finnish secondary school (13-15 year olds)
  teachers of mathematics, 110 female and 94 male,
  answered to a questionnaire. One year later ten
  of the respondents were interviewed.

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GIRLS BOYS
Boys and girls essential differences as math
learners

• 145 characterizations in total 105
  characterizations in total
• conscientious 35 idle
  17diligent, hard-working 34 reasoning,
  intellectual 13rote-learner 12
  careless 11
• lack of selfconfidence 12 insight,
  creative 9 routin-doer 10 selfconfident
  8 rule-follower, copies 8 venturous
  7 exercising 5 problemsolver 5
  persistent 4 not persistent
  5

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What are girls and boys essential differences
as math learners?

• The most prominent difference concerned working.
  Girls are painstaking and diligent and boys are
  idle.
• Secondly cognitive skills were emphazised, girls
  tend to routines and boys use their power of
  reason.
• The third difference was found in attitudes, boys
  are venturous but girls lack self-confidence.
• 14 of the teachers did not believe in essential
  differences.

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Describe in a few words a girl / a boy who is
achieving high in mathematics

• 30 of the teachers described a high achieving
  girl and a high achieving boy with same or nearly
  same words.
• But the great majority of teachers mentioned
  different factors for girls and boys high
  achievement. The factors for boys were more
  varied and many-sided than those of girls.

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A HIGH ACHIEVING GIRL A HIGH ACHIEVING
BOYdescriptions (tot. 320)
descriptions (tot. 250)

• diligent 82 diligent 23
• conscientious 66 conscientious 20
• (somewhat) talented 15 (naturally) talented 20
• quiet 11 perceiving 15
• careful 11 intellectual 19
• bright 11 bright 14

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Teachers beliefs about gender equityQuestion
1. What is the best way to treat boys and girls
equitably?(hintsno attention to gender, equal
treatment, girls and boys needs, favour the
weaker) Question 2. Is it necessary to bring
up gender equity in math class and how do you do
it?
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Teachers were categorized under three labels
according to their answer on addressing gender
equity

• (1) students have no gender (41 )
• (2) equal treatment (38 )
• (3) girls and boys needs (21 )
• (4) favour the weaker (0 )

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Students have no gender

• Approximately 41 of the teachers actively
  denied the existence of gender equity issues or
  tried to behave as if they were gender blind.
  They gave responses such as
• I dont bother about gender, I just teach.
• I treat a student as a person not as a boy or a
  girl.
• I try to overlook gender.
• Mathematics and teaching mathematics is gender
  free.

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Equal treatment

• 38 of the teachers defined equity as equal
  treatment. This category differs from the former
  one, of negative awareness, in that the students
  of these teachers were girls and boys. These
  teachers did not actively reject the possibility
  of inequity.
• The teachers did not usually define what they
  meant with equal treatment. They addressed equity
  by paying attention to all students and they
  avoided emphasizing differences.
• I require the same performance from girls and
  boys. Nowadays also girls dare, there is not so
  big difference.

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Girls and boys needs

• 21 of the responses were classified as
  reflecting teachers aims to care about gender or
  individual differences. Teachers starting point
  was that both genders have special needs or that
  there are gender differences in cognitive
  abilities, attitudes or learning styles.
• I vary my teaching methods and exercises
• I take into account the different learning
  abilities of them both.

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Favour the weaker

• The teachers of this study did not accept this
  principle and no one chose the alternative of
  favouring the weaker one in the questionnaire.
  Also in the interviews this idea of compensation
  was rejected.
• The Finnish law on gender equity says that it is
  possible to deviate from equal treatment
  especially in the favour of females, if it
  strives to realize the aims of the law for
  equality. This compensation is not regarded as
  discrimination. (In Finland we have the quota
  principle in political decision making, every
  committee must have at least 40 of either
  sex.)

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Is it necessary to bring up gender equity in
math class and how do you do it?

• Only one third of the teachers regarded the
  equity issue necessary to be brought up. The
  great majority of the teachers regarded gender
  equity self-evident.
• Gender equity is self-evident, its no need to
  make any fuss about it.
• Mathematics and gender are in no contact
  whatsoever.

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Results

• Even though many of the teachers did not express
  very stereotyped beliefs, a great majority held
  different beliefs about girls and boys and those
  differences favoured boys. The most emergent was
  the belief in girls employing inferior cognitive
  skills.
• Gender equity was not considered a problem, but
  equity between those who were motivated to learn
  and those who were not, and heterogeneous groups
  and disturbance.
• Some of the teachers were concerned about boys,
  who were underachieving or might fall aside, but
  girls were supposed to manage thanks to their
  consciousness.

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• Boys attained most of teacher attention. But this
  situation was not seen to violate equity.
• Gender equity was considered self-evident and
  mathematics gender-free. Most teachers did not
  pay any attention to the issue, they believed
  that they treated a student as an individual and
  not as a girl or a boy.
• No differences were found between the beliefs of
  female and male teachers.

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• Valerie Walkerdine published 1989 Counting Girls
  Out, a book that changed perceptions about the
  gender problem. The mainstream analyses of the
  problem had located one or other lack in girls
  and women as the root of the problem.
• In the new edition (1998) Walkerdine writes in
  the afterword
• Considerable concern is now being expressed
  about the relatively poor school performance of
  boys related to girls....Girls attainment in
  school is not celebrated as an index of
  cleverness, brains or intellectuality.

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Rather those very factors that year 1976 were
considered a problem in relation to Mathematics,
namely rule-following, rote-learning, neatness,
good behaviour and so forth, are presented as the
keys to female success, downgrading that success,
while suggesting that classrooms are too feminine
and that masculinity is downgraded and
discouraged.The ideal child it seems is still a
boy, a boy indeed with potential, whose success
is being thwarted by women and girls, indeed by
the very notion of female success. (Walkerdine
1998, p. 168).
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Lucina Hagman (1897) My experience on
co-education
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Lucina Hagman wrote in 1897

• A girls diffidence and lack of self-confidence
  makes her to distrust the competence of her
  knowledge in solving problems. It is astonishing
  that this conscientious and diligent girl is
  often unwilling to use her intellect. The teacher
  must urge and force her to think independently
  and if he does this, he will find the girl more
  capable than her outward appearance might
  suggest.
• Such as a woman is on her present stage of
  evolution, she seldom possesses such confidence
  in her talent needed for scientific research.

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• I barely need to mention that these
  characteristics are a result from the prevailing
  perceptions and fostering traditions during
  centuries.
• It often happens in class, when you ask for
  reasoning and conclusions, that the boys raise
  their hands up sooner and more densely than
  girls, but when asked, you get nonsense for an
  answer from the former. As girls lack
  self-confidence, boys have got it too much.

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