The area of mathematics was no different from the rest. One of the greatest philosophers of the Renaissance, Immanuel Kant, writing in the eighteenth century, wrote that women might as well grow beards as worry their pretty heads about geometry. What does this say about the supposed "enlightened" attitude of the Renaissance? Did Kant believe that women were incapable of understanding and contributing to mathematics? It certainly seems that this is what he was trying to say.
Recent scholarship on gender and learning is prolific in its magnitude. There are more journal articles on gender in the classroom than can be read in a reasonable amount of time, and that does not speak to the number of books that have been published as well. The topic is a rich one for discussion, as is any topic in education, if only because the qualitative nature of the discipline withholds any possibility of a rock-solid conclusion on any issue.
Despite this, academics continue to research, and one of the areas that they have been researching with respect to gender is the area of cognitive differences between males and females. The results have been reproduced several times by different researchers in different areas of the United States, and so it seems fairly sure that there is a definite difference in the way that boys and girls think in the math classroom. This cognitive difference has definite repercussions to those students' achievement as they progress through the system.
Do women really lack the ability to do math? Certainly not. However, gender differences in mathematical achievement in the classroom are a very real phenomenon. This is due to several factors, once of which is the difference in cognitive style between males and females at a young age. These cognitive differences are reflected in the different achievement that males and females reach using standard, traditional assessment methods. In essence, boys and girls think and solve problems in different ways, and standard assessment techniques do not address the effects of these cognitive differences. However, assessment techniques can be easily modified to do so...
Researchers have pointed out some of the underlying causes for concern in this area. The anecdotal and research evidence states that boys continue to outperform girls in math and science. Girls' attitudes towards math and science have become more negative; and evidence shows that males excel in math while females tend to excel in verbal skills. (Jovanovic and Dreves, 1996)
However, it has also been found that major differences in performance due to gender are not usually seen until adolescence. These differences are usually demonstrated in higher-order mathematical tasks, such as multi-step problem solving. (Fennema et al., 1998) To some researchers, this indicates differences in how different genders think about fundamental mathematical concepts...
So, why do the differences in cognitive strategies exist between males and females? It is now generally agreed that the differences are not biological. The idea used to be that boys are better at spatial tasks, which made them better at certain mathematical exercise, and girls are more proficient at language-oriented tasks, and that this is a biological difference. While it is still argued whether these areas of proficiency are divided by gender, it is now generally agreed that those differences are not biologically-based. Rather, if they are gender-divided, then they are so because of the environmental factors impacting on males and females in their infant and toddler years....(Jovanovic and Dreves, 1996)
It has been shown that there exist gender differences between males and females cognitive styles. Many of the reasons for these differences (including environmental factors inside and outside of the classroom) also influence the achievement levels of males and females. Documentation has shown that males tend to outperform females in math and science testing. Several circumstances have been outlined in which these performance variants occur... (Gallagher, 1998)
When grade eleven students were asked to explain why boys tend to outperform girls on math tests, they came up with several explanations. Many students felt that their ability to achieve in math was pre-determined by their sex. Several gender-biased statements were said by both sexes such as: math is natural for boys; girls get confused in math. Many students felt that males were more likely to use their mathematics skills later in life whereas females would not. A considerable number of students felt that gender issues evolved from instructional practices. They felt that the lack of female role models in math and science at the high school level impacted students' achievement... (Cummings, 1994)
Math and science instructors need to make their lessons appealing to both sexes. This may mean incorporating a higher level of communication skills or more preparation for standardized testing...
We... encourage teachers to use different assessment techniques which will in turn encourage all students to use both [retreival and concrete] methods of problem-solving...
Classrooms with a gender-responsive learning environment encourage the participation and involvement of all students...
It has also been suggested that single-sex learning environments may be of benefit. This is a controversial idea.
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