Culture and Gender Influences in Mathematics

From the article "Gender, Culture, and Mathematics Performance" we learn that there has been previously a gender difference in mathematics performance between the genders that existed until the recent few decades. The article states females have matched the males in mathematical performance, a narrowing of gap between the genders in scoring above the 95th or 99th percentile, and that although not recognized frequently as males, that they have documented females with  profound mathematical talent. In looking past the numbers for explanation, the researchers recognize that a gap that may have existed but has either dissolved or is narrowing and can be directly connected to sociocultural factors rather than a biological distinction.  As we read through the article we learn that over a hundred years ago, women didn't have access to programs/courses that would extend their skills. The equality of access can be attributed to some of the differences that may have been present in previous studies early in the 20th century and have gradually faded out leading to the elimination of the gender gap. We know today through the mandatory nation wide every grade testing attached to the "No Child Left Behind" US government initiative, that females are taking on par many of the courses that they used to not take and now they are seeing a parity in performance levels. This is then connected to a change in jobs that were held by females several decades ago to today. Over time, females have almost equaled(49%) the males in attaining jobs that required math and science. This can be directly attributed to a change in sociocultural and environmental issues that have changed the access females have to science and mathematics courses as well as having equally high expectations of females as those of males to learn in these fields. Access to and gaining jobs is also connected to a change in sociocultural ideologies where females have arguably equal access to jobs as males. This has contributed to a national culture where all learners are on par.

Connecting this to my classroom, I take from this that gender learning is connected to the cultural and environmental climate of the community that influences that of the students and builds into our class learning climate. I feel that separating the genders would be a limiting move by removing learning experiences that will build a more comprehensively skilled collaborative learner. It is then incumbent on the teacher to filter out any limiting community influences that would be barriers to females learning mathematics and facilitate the building and maintaining of a gender equal inclusive student centred classroom that maintains high expectations for each and every learner. This environment needs to be coupled with specific intentional assessment that aims at the individual strengths in acquiring and mastering skills necessary to meet the learning targets along their own learning path.