Abstract

Females continue to have negative dispositions towards mathematics even though the performance gap between females and males has all but disappeared. While there are many hypotheses for why these negative dispositions exist among females towards mathematics, this paper explores the possibility that the field of mathematics could favor more masculine ways of reasoning at the exclusion of valid, non-masculine mathematical thought. To research this idea, the day-to-day, non-formal, non-school mathematical activities of two women were identified and analyzed. The analysis uncovered complex mathematical processes among both women that were fundamentally different from the mathematical processes common in the mathematics field. Such results seem to affirm the idea that females' ways of doing mathematics are not acknowledged or validated by the mathematics community and therefore suggest the development of more inclusive mathematics research and instruction.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Physical and Mathematical Sciences; Mathematics Education

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2021-04-07

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd11573

Keywords

women in math, female perspective, everyday mathematics, context, quantities, quantitative process

Language

english

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