"We desperately need more people with good mathematical qualifications to fill many posts in numerate occupations, yet the numbers choosing to continue studying mathematics have fallen over the last 10 years. This book is important as it investigates how mathematics is aligned with masculinity and hence is not attractive to a significant part of the population. It is also challenging, scholarly, and a thoroughly good read. It reports the results of carefully designed research on gender and choice, and includes some fascinating individual case-studies. It should make us all reflecton what we are doing and how we can repair the damage." Margaret Brown, Professor of Mathematical Education, King's College London "The book speaks to me as one of those texts that will become seminal in mathematics education. It is original, refreshing, and despite a complicated plot, points to some ways forward. It is engagingly written, if at times perhaps a little bit no-nonsense in tone. It will be of interest to teachers and teacher educators, as well as providing a theoretical stance that should inform future research." British Educational Research Journal The study of mathematics, together with other 'gendered' subjects such as science and engineering, usually attracts more male than female pupils, particularly at more advanced levels. In this book Heather Mendick explores this phenomenon, addressing the important question of why more boys than girls choose to study mathematics. She combines new research with an original theoretical approach to argue that 'doing mathematics is doing masculinity'. The book illuminates what studying mathematics means for both students and teachers and offers a broad range of insights into students' views and practices. In addition to the words of young people learning mathematics, the masculinity of mathematics is explored through historical material and cinematic representations. Heather Mendick discusses the ways in which the alignment of mathematics with masculinity creates tensions for girls and women doing the subject. These tensions are sensitively explored through interviews with young men and women, to show how doing mathematics fits or conflicts with their gender identities. Finally, the book explores the implications for teachers, including ways to promote gender equity in mathematics education. This is key reading for students on courses in gender and education, mathematics education, gender and curriculum, and social justice.

From one of the greatest minds in contemporary mathematics, Professor E.T. Bell, comes a witty, accessible, and fascinating look at the beautiful craft and enthralling history of mathematics. Men of Mathematics provides a rich account of major mathematical milestones, from the geometry of the Greeks through Newton’s calculus, and on to the laws of probability, symbolic logic, and the fourth dimension. Bell breaks down this majestic history of ideas into a series of engrossing biographies of the great mathematicians who made progress possible—and who also led intriguing, complicated, and often surprisingly entertaining lives. Never pedantic or dense, Bell writes with clarity and simplicity to distill great mathematical concepts into their most understandable forms for the curious everyday reader. Anyone with an interest in math may learn from these rich lessons, an advanced degree or extensive research is never necessary.

Debates in Mathematics Education explores the major issues that mathematics teachers encounter in their daily lives. It engages with established and contemporary debates, promotes and supports critical reflection and aims to stimulate both novice and experienced teachers to reach informed judgements and argue their point of view with deeper theoretical knowledge and understanding. Written by experts in the field of mathematics education, it investigates and offers fresh insight into topics of central importance, including: Gender, social inequality and mathematics Mathematics, politics and climate change The history and culture of mathematics Using popular culture in the mathematics classroom The concept of ‘ability’ and its impact on learning What we mean by ‘teaching for understanding’ Choosing and using examples in teaching The fitness of formal examinations. Designed to stimulate discussion and support you in your own research, writing and practice, Debates in Mathematics Education will be a valuable resource for any student or practising teacher engaged in initial teacher training, continuing professional development or Masters level study. It also has much to offer to those leading initial teacher education programmes, and to beginning doctoral students looking for a survey of the field of mathematics education research.

This new and updated second edition of Debates in Mathematics Education explores the major issues that mathematics teachers encounter in their daily lives. By engaging with established and contemporary debates, this volume promotes and supports critical reflection and aims to stimulate both novice and experienced teachers to reach informed judgements and argue their point of view with deeper theoretical knowledge and understanding. Divided into five accessible sections, this book investigates and offers fresh insight into topics of central importance in mathematics education, with this second edition including new discussions and chapters on: Classic and contemporary issues of pedagogy, politics, philosophy and sociology of mathematics education International comparisons of achievement Digital technologies for teaching Mastery in mathematics Pop culture and mathematics Whether mathematics can be harmful Designed to stimulate discussion and support you in your own research, writing and practice through suggested questions and activities throughout, Debates in Mathematics Education will be a valuable resource for any student or practising teacher, and those engaged in initial teacher education, continuing professional development or Master's level study. This book also has much to offer to those leading mathematics departments in schools and initial teacher education programmes, and to beginning doctoral students looking for a survey of the field of mathematics education research.

The uncertain, complex and problematic relationships between masculinity and education have come to occupy a prominent position within the sociology of education in recent years. This collection of articles brings together a range of different perspectives, offering both empirical and theoretical contributions to our understanding of this subject. The articles seek to broaden our sociological understanding by considering masculinities in relation to a variety of educational setting and contexts. These include the role of football in the playground of a junior school, the question of why more boys study AS-level mathematics in England, the changing rhetoric of education ministers, and attempts to increase the number of male primary school teachers in Australia. The collection also engages with the broader context of gender politics and educational theory and the volume concludes with a study of the move away from class analysis within educational theories in recent decades, taking English white working class masculinity as its main focus. The collection offers a perceptive insight into a crucial and current area within the sociology of education. This book was originally published as a special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Presented in this volume is a kaleidoscopic view of the research done in the PREMA project (Promoting Equity in Maths Achievement. Proceedings of the Project's Workshops), which was a twenty months research study type of project funded under the "General Activities of Observation, Analysis and Innovation" of the Socrates Programme (European Commission, DG for Education and Culture). The research is enrooted on the position that the achievement of Europe's Lisbon goal set in March 2000 is dependent on the extend to which Europe will utilize all of its human resources and its rich socio-cultural heritage