Gender and Learning Settings: Issues From Yesterday to the Present

Ih many Western nations, voices were raised in the late 1960s and early 1970s to draw attention to females ' disadvantage in society generally and in education in particular. Mathematics, the "critical filter " (Sells, 1978) to many tertiary courses and related careers which were also linked to status and power in society, was "identified and targeted for action. At.that time, females ' achievements anp participation rates in mathematics and many other science-related fields were lower than males'. Early research and scholarship in the field of gender and mathematics focused on documenting quantitative differences between males and females. Ih trying to explain the persistent patterns found, two assumptions, founded in liberal feminist thinking, appeared to underpin the mainstream research agenda: that there were. rio differences between males and females, and that the levels achieved by males were the norm to which females should strive. Research efforts uncovered a range of cognitive, affective, and environmental variables on which females and males differed. Explanatory models were postulated. Critically examined, it is clear that women were considered to be "deficit. " To achieve "equity, " efforts were thu