Paying the Price for "Sugar and Spice": Shifting the Analytical Lens in Equity Research

By Jo Boaler. 2002

104 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The analytical stance taken by equity researchers in education, the methodologies employed, and the interpretations that are drawn from data all have an enormous impact on the knowledge that is produced about sources of inequality. In the 1970s and 1980s, a great deal of interest was given to the issue of women's and girls' underachievement in mathematics. This prompted numerous different research projects that investigated the extent and nature of the differences between girls' and boys' achievement and offered reasons why such disparities occurred. This work contributed to a discourse on gender and mathematics that flowed through the media channels and into schools, homes, and the workplace. In this article, I consider some of the scholarship on gender and mathematics, critically examining the findings that were produced and the influence they had. In the process, I propose a fundamental tension in research on equity, as scholars walk a fine and precarious line between lack of concern on the one hand and essentialism on the other. I argue in this article that negotiating that tension may be the most critical role for equity researchers as we move into the future.

Subfields: Education, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f3733d5aac84d96f3f526b784043635913c2c156

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Citations in the corpus

Gender, toys and learning (2010, background): “Although girls have largely caught up with boys in terms of achievement at maths and science during compulsory education, science remains unpopular among girls (Francis, 2000 ; Francis et al , 2003 ; Calabrese Barton & Brickhouse, 2006 ), girls are more likely than boys to take generalised Doubl”
A Closer Look at Gender in NAEP Mathematics Achievement and Affect Data: Intersections with Achievement, Race/Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status. (2006, background): “Similarly, others have argued that researchers must take greater care to avoid locating the problem within girls; they point out that boys should not be the "gold standard" by which girls are judged (Boaler, 2002; Walkerdine, 1998).”
Mathematics and science inequalities in the United Kingdom: when elitism, sexism and culture collide (2011, background): “Gender inequities in mathematics and the sciences have a long history in the UK, and until 1997 girls routinely achieved less than boys in scientific subjects at GCSE level (Burton, 1986; 1990; 1995; Boaler, 1997a; 2002a; DfES, 2007).”
Taking Up Opportunities to Learn: Constructing Dispositions in Mathematics Classrooms (2009, background): “…membership in particular communities creates conflicts or inconsistencies in engaging particular dispositions (Fordham & Ogbu, 1996; Nasir & Saxe, 2003), and (c) the ways in which current practices in particular settings might be inequitable (Boaler, 2002; Delpit, 1988; Lubienski, 2000, 2003).”
Research, Reform, and Equity in U.S. Mathematics Education (2002, background): “…4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade levels. grades (Fennema, Carpenter, Jacobs, Franke, & Levi, 1998), should avoid viewing girls from deficit perspectives (Boaler, 1997, 2002/this issue; Rogers & Kaiser, 1995; Walkerdine, 1998), and requires even further acceptance among some mathematics education…”
The Anti-Anxiety Curriculum: Combating Math Anxiety in the Classroom (2010, background): “Under achievement and non-representation of girls at the highest levels in mathematics may be linked to the method of instruction rather than ability because boys are more likely to adapt better to the traditional skills model (Boaler, 2002).”
Ideas and Identities: Supporting Equity in Cooperative Mathematics Learning (2009, background): “…because students themselves work out a social order for the group; the second ignores the fact that these preexisting social categories influence the nature of classroom interaction, though not necessarily in predictable or simple ways (see, e.g., Boaler, 2002; Lubienski, 2007; Martin, 2006).”
Addressing math anxiety in the classroom (2014, background): “(Stuart, 2000, p. 330) Furthermore, math is often taught as if students have the same ability, preferred learning style and pace of working (Boaler, 2002).”
The Gender Gap in Mathematics Achievement: Evidence from Italian Data (2016, unknown): “Problem solving, class-discussions and investigative work and cognitive activation strategies have been found to improve girls‟ performances (Boaler 2002; Zohar and Sela 2003; OECD 2015).”
Unpacking the Male Superiority Myth and Masculinization of Mathematics at the Intersections: A Review of Research on Gender in Mathematics Education (2017, methodology): “(Boaler, 2002a, p. 47).”
“I would rather die”: reasons given by 16-year-olds for not continuing their study of mathematics (2008, background): “The under-representation in top sets may be due to a desire to be protective of girls, since there is evidence that some wish to avoid the masculine atmosphere of competition that tends to exist in these sets (Landau 1994 ; Boaler 1997c , 2002 ; Bartholomew 2000 ).”