Abstract
Research on gender issues and mathematics education is often conducted in classroom settings and/or with teachers, students, and parents. However, perspectives about mathematics from adults beyond teachers and parents can have an impact on students. Thus, we conducted research in Australia and Canada about the general public’s views of gender and mathematics. Participants (n = 405) were surveyed using a questionnaire in which all questions were worded in a non-binary manner. In this article, we focus on participants’ views about gender and mathematics ability, and the importance of studying mathematics by gender. We report both overall trends and trends by demographic group (country, gender, age, and education level). The majority of participants indicated that there was no relationship between gender and mathematics ability or between gender and the importance of studying mathematics. Participants with gendered views typically felt that boys/men/males are better at mathematics and that it was more important for girls/women/females to study mathematics. Although the findings were generally encouraging, the existence of sexist, stereotyped views highlights the need for additional work to probe people’s views of gender and mathematics. Our study is an example of mathematics education research conducted in a gender-inclusive way.
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Notes
Per the conditions for ethics approval, the two cities cannot be identified.
The hipster subculture is typically composed of older teenagers and young, middle-class adults. Hipsters are people who are “unusually aware of and interested in new and unconventional patterns (as in jazz or fashion)” (Merriam-Webster, n.d., para. 1).
One participant did not provide their age.
Three participants did not provide their highest level of education completed.
College is a post-secondary institution where programs are offered that are typically applied in nature (e.g., laboratory technician, paralegal). Some of these programs may lead into university studies.
Similar to our approach when referring to the participants’ genders, for these codes, we used the terms that were most commonly used by the participants. Other terms used included chicks and guys. With our choice of wording for the codes, we also wanted to specify that some participants discussed adults, some discussed children, and some discussed both.
Due to an oversight by the research team, one participant was not asked this question.
In Forgasz and Leder’s study, data were only provided by country as well as separated by mode of data collection (i.e., street level or Facebook).
Although there were of course parents and teachers involved in our study, there were also many participants who did not hold either role. Participants were not asked if they were parents and/or teachers, but these roles were sometimes referenced in participants’ answers.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Lauren Arnett and Travis Robinson from Monash University and Anita Basso, Soo Jung Ha, Maude Martin, and Christian Solari from McGill University in the collection of data for this project. Furthermore, we gratefully acknowledge Rebecca Manikis for her helpful contributions to both data collection and analysis for this project.
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This research was generously supported by a Dean’s Early Career Researcher Grant from the Faculty of Education at Monash University.
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This research was approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project #8506) and the McGill University Research Ethics Board (REB File #523–0517).
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Jao, L., Hall, J. & Di Placido, C. “If you’re a dude, you’re a chick, whatever the hell in between, you need to know about maths”: the Australian and Canadian general public’s views of gender and mathematics. Math Ed Res J 36, 339–365 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-023-00448-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-023-00448-y