User:Mathematical Relationships

This page is an annotated bibliography of work that is relevant to the study of the ways that people form their relationships with maths. It contains work that draws on sociocultural, discourse and psychoanalytic perspectives.

Butler, J. (1997) The psychic life of power (Stanford, Stanford University Press)
This does not deal with mathematics or education but is an important text for those interested in taking a psychosocial approach to identity because in it she brings together the work of Foucault and Freud and develops an understanding of agency. She argues that the psyche "is precisely what exceeds the imprisoning effects of the discursive demands to inhabit a coherent identity, to become a coherent subject" (p. 86) and asks "how can we work the power relations by which we are worked and in what direction?" (p. 100)

Francis, B. & Archer, L. (2005) British-Chinese pupils' constructions of gender and learning, Oxford Review of Education, 31 (3), 497-515
This is a useful article on British Chinese students’ subject preferences. Becky and Louise note the dominance of mathematics (and science and, for boys, graphics) in British-Chinese students’ choices of favourite subjects when compared with the general population; drama and PE feature strongly in their least favourite subjects. There's also a discussion of data on which gender they think is better at which subject: three pupils (two girls and one boy) argued that 'females are better at maths', one boy argued that girls are better than boys are science, one girl said that girls are better at all 'academic' subjects and boys at 'practical' subjects. No boys or girls thought that boys were better at traditionally feminine subjects. Becky and Louise then explore British-Chinese students’ very positive constructions of themselves as pupils and how their achievement is seen by teachers as the wrong sort (judged and found lacking wrt European model of education). They relate this to the arguments made by Valerie Walkerdine in Counting Girls Out where teachers construct girls’ mathematical achievements as the wrong sort.

Jones, S. & Myhill, D. (2004) Seeing things differently: teachers' constructions of underachievement, Gender and Education, 16 (4), 531-546
This article appears to adopt a contradictory position on ability, drawing on Valerie Walkerdine’s work but also seeming to imply that 'ability' does exist. There is data on which children teachers of years 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 think are high-/low-/under-achievers. Girls are more often in the high- group and boys more often in the low- and under- groups. 1 in 3 boys are positioned in the under- group, twice the proportion of girls. They also have a record of the reasons why teachers feel under-achievers are under-achievers; girls are more likely to be seen as in that group due to lacking confidence or external events, boys are more likely to be seen as in that group due to immaturity, being fidgety, poor behaviour and poor motivation. Usefully argues: "There is an inherent dualism in what teachers are saying here. By identifying more boys as underachievers, they could be seeing potential in lower achieving boys and failing to see potential in lower achieving girls. At the same time, teachers voice a contradictory, negative construction of boys, a deficit model, which problematizes boys and idealizes girls." (p. 542)

Shaw, J. (1995) Education, gender and anxiety (London, Taylor & Francis)
Jenny Shaw looks at what psychoanalytic perspectives have to offer a sociological analysis of gender and education. She examines the idea that anxiety is the dynamic driving the current educational system looking specifically at reading in the early years, subject choice and single-sex schooling. She does not deal directly with mathematics but there are many ideas that are useful particularly in the two chapters on subject choices. Jenny looks at subjects as transitional objects (an idea from Winnicott, a bit like comfort blankets, things we cling onto to deal with anxiety) and how this, taken together with the gendering of subjects, leads to a gender polarisation in young people’s choices.

Walkerdine, V. (1998) Counting girls out (2nd edn) (London, Falmer)
This is a classic 1989 text based on a series of research projects carried out during the 1980s by the Girls and Mathematics Unit based at the Institute of Education. In this new edition it is framed by an introduction by Paul Ernest and an afterword by Valerie Walkerdine that underline its continuing relevance. Valerie applies post-structuralist approaches to understanding the 'problem' of girls and mathematics and shows that girls never did 'fail' at maths after all; for example, she challenges the categorisation of questions into 'easy' or 'hard' and as using 'rote-learning' or 'intuition’ and shows how these inscribe girls’ better performance than boys as failure.