CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1. Overview of the study
This study focuses specifically on the ways in which independent schoolgirls differentially positioned in Core Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy construct their relationship to Mathematics. In this chapter, I draw together the ideas raised in the exploration of the words and actions of this study’s participants. First, drawing on qualitative, poststructural feminist research approaches, I summarise my answers to the following research question: How do Grade 11 girls in a Catholic coeducational
independent school construct their relationship to the learning areas of Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy? In answering this question, the following two sub-questions, which are embedded in the above, will be answered:
• How do they see themselves in relation to Core Mathematics Mathematical Literacy?
• What are their gendered experiences of Core Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy?
The question of how the girls “see themselves” is an identity questions and draws attention to the various ways each girl positions herself relative to Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy, the second draws attention to their experiences both inside and outside of the classroom environment. In this thesis, identity and experiences are focal points as they are important in mutually co-constructing the girls’ relationship to Mathematics and
Mathematical Literacy.
I continue by considering the implications of this study and conclude with a brief discussion about its limitations.
This study illustrates how doing mathematics is doing gender and furthermore how the association with Mathematics underpins identity work as the category ‘girl’ is lived out amongst sixteen and seventeen year olds. It also illuminates how sexuality is embedded within the doing of gender and how doing Mathematics is not only doing gender but
sexuality as well. The motivation for this study came from my personal experiences as a Mathematics pupil, Mathematics teacher and gender student, and stemmed from numerous university readings and assignments centring on gender and Mathematics. What these readings and assignments drew attention to was the realisation that my previous and current relationship with Mathematics was anything but simple.
The decision to work with Grade 11 girls was two-fold. The improved academic performance of girls in Mathematics, and the narrowing of the gender gaps between boys and girls in Mathematics are issues that have recently been well documented in the media.
According to KZN Education Department Superintendent - General Cassius Lubisi (Naidoo, 2006) this gap in performance will probably be a thing of the past by the end of 2008. Although the focus of this study is not on the academic performance of these six girls, it was a necessary starting point. Given that girls seem to be performing as well as boys in Mathematics at school level, why do we still need to concern ourselves with issues of gender and Mathematics? The answer to this question is that it has increasingly become apparent that performance is not the only issue with which we should be concerned when looking at the relationship between gender and Mathematics at school level. Paechter (2001a) argues that girls’ enjoyment of and engagement with Mathematics does not seem to have increased with increased success. This thesis focuses on six Grade 11 girls and
explores their enjoyment of and engagement with Mathematics.
Secondly, this grade of learners is the first group to be taught under the new Further Education and Training band that emphasizes learner centredness and provides the space and the imperative to engage a much broader notion of what it means to do and succeed in Mathematics (Vithal, 2002). The Revised National Curriculum Statements for
Mathematical Literacy seeks as its goal to ensure that the citizens of South Africa are highly numerate consumers of Mathematics. The Further Education and Training subject, Mathematical Literacy, “should enable the learner to become a self-managing person, a contributing worker and a participating citizen in a developing democracy” (Department of Education, 2004, p. 10). The outcomes of Mathematical Literacy are designed to enable
learners to handle with confidence the Mathematics that affects their everyday lives and so be appropriately educated for the modern world. By contrast, the curriculum statements for Core Mathematics highlights that the study of Mathematics is a discipline in its own right and pursues the establishment of knowledge without necessarily requiring application in real life. By acquiring a functioning knowledge of Mathematics, learners are empowered to make sense of society. “Mathematical competence provides access to rewarding activity and contributes to personal, social, scientific and economic development” (Department of Education, 2004, p. 9). The subject Core Mathematics in the Further Education and Training band will provide a platform for linkages to Mathematics in Higher Education institutions. The outcomes specified above show that Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy have very specific outcomes and serve two different groups of learners. The Mathematical curriculum statement continues that “Mathematics is an essential element in the curriculum of any learner who intends to pursue a career in the Physical, Mathematical, Computer, Life, Earth, Space and Environmental Sciences, Technology, Economic,
Management and Social Sciences” (p.11). It concludes by stating that if the learner does not intend to follow any one of the above career paths, then they should take Mathematical Literacy.
These two groups of girls form part of a cohort of learners in South Africa who were introduced to the learning areas of Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy at the start of their Grade 10 year in 2006. My interest in working with a group of girls from each learning area was to see what relationship each group constructed with Mathematics, and what relationship the two groups constructed between each other. Further to this, I was interested in understanding how Core Mathematics was being constructed by the girls, particularly as it had replaced the old higher grade Mathematics which had much power, prestige and status invested in it. In light of the above, I wanted to see how Mathematical Literacy was being constructed.