Author: Valerie Walkerdine
Source: For the learning of mathematics, 10 (3), 51-56.
As we discussed many times in this course, this article starts with
the controversial idea that the mathematics children do in classrooms is
higher level than the mathematics street children do to sell the merchandises.
The author, Valerie Walkerdine, questions what the higher level is and how we can make sense this nature of
mathematics and mathematics education. She argues that school mathematics has nature “to regulate and control through reason in
a social order” (p.54) that colonizers hold and they do not have to calculate
to survive. However, she addresses the essential idea of mathematics as reason
became sanctuarized within the curriculum now, which leads to that everything becomes
mathematics. About the sequence which takes us pre-logical to
logico-mathematical reasoning, she describes it as “a discursive relation in a
new set of practices … with its own modes
of regulation and subjectification” (p.54) rather than from concrete to abstract.
In
the last parts of this article, the author mainly points the pain that female
students feel when moving from one mathematical practice to another. One
example the author shows is that the girls who scored high IQ and were
positioned as “clever” at 4-year-old by the mother, became to be positioned as “stupid”
by the teacher at 10-year-old in the school. To survive from this unendurable
pain, they recognize themselves as the target of violence of the others (especially
boys). The author argues that even though girls displayed the remarkable
characteristics, it does not mean they are in success.
In case of Japan, I
suppose Japanese children get accustomed with school mathematics in early stage. Japanese mathematics classes
devote a higher proportion of the time on
abstract problems compared other countries, and some children start to go or
take math tutors (such as abacus) whey
they are in pre-school. Although I have to investigate how exactly they are, I
wonder if there is a reverse transition of Walkerdine’s idea in moving from one
practice to another, which means from abstract to concrete.
Additionally, I cannot agree with the author’s argument that high-performance
girls are designated as only hard-working whereas poor performance boys are designated as bright even they do not show the evidence. It has been over 20
years since this article published, it might not be true in the current society.
As far as I know, it is definitely not
true at least in Japan, and there are no discriminations of evaluation about
academic attainment among gender. However, most female students in Japan do not
choose mathematics or science as their main discipline in post-secondary
education. I am curious this fact is coming from culturally or biologically.
Questions:
Do you agree with the author’s argument
that “high-performing girls came to be designated as ‘only hard-working’ when
poorly-achieving boys could be understood as ‘bright’ even though they presented
little evidence of high attainment” (p.55)?
Do you believe there are cultural or
biological differences about mathematics ability/learning/preference (like or
not like math) between sex/gender?
I do not agree with the author, but perhaps for a different reason than might be imagined. This author seems to be suggesting that students are treated differently because of their gender. First of all, I think that gender is the wrong term and she should refer to sex, which is biologically defined at birth, although it could even be argued that that is not always binary either. Does the author really believe these statements to be the case? I have certainly not seen a gender bias among educators, who are the ones who would arguably have the biggest influence on these students.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is a possibility that these statements have more to do with attitude towards mathematics and in that case, it has been found in numerous studies that girls do not think they are good at math, although their achievement on exams (in particular) often suggests otherwise, as they have frequently earned higher results. Girls are more likely to challenge gender stereotypes, but they are still underrepresented in mathematics-related careers. I believe the real culprit here has nothing to do with their ability or preference for mathematics, but rather in their own self-worth.
I don't believe there is much difference in term of ability of learning math but on the other hand I have noticed differences a
ReplyDeletecross sexes. I mean differences including dispositions towards math teacher, math tasks and math itself. It doesn't necessarily reflect in the assessment of the performances but I can notice when I am with these students. One possible explanation is that how students attribute success to hard-work and self-image. Carole Dweck (2008) explored how mindsets impact success from the perspective of psychology. The author argued that the belief that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are carved in stone constitutes a “fixed mindset” which people tend to seek confirmation or approval of, rather than striving to make changes in meaningful ways. Students, boys or girls, with this type of mindset described ideals as things that could not be worked towards. Unfortunately, much of school mathematics in China has become more and more disconnected with real life and I feel it has a much greater impact on female students who are more struggling finding meanings of learning math.