Representations of Mathematicians in Lower Secondary Mathematics Textbooks

Abstract

We report on a study focused on identifying and describing the representations of mathematicians contained in Mexican textbooks of lower secondary level. We considered representations not only in the text but also in drawings, photographs, and illustrations in general. The term mathematician was understood in a broad sense: any person (or group of people) that in the textbook either (1) was explicitly referred to as a mathematician, (2) was credited with the development of a mathematical concept or tool, or (3) was displayed performing some sort of mathematical activity (such as counting, modelling, etc.). The results show that the representations that most frequently appear in the textbooks are white male mathematicians (mainly Europeans), who lived in ancient times; the representations of female mathematicians are almost nil. At the end of the paper the implications of these results are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested.

Gender Is the Name of the Frame: Understanding Gender through the Lens of Relational Frame Theory

“…Barbie (and everything related to Barbie) is now placed in relation to math and difficulty. Rules such as, "Math is tough for girls" or "Math is not for girls" and, ultimately, "I am a girl and therefore math isn't for me" might be derived and reinforced, particularly given gender disparities in STEM careers (UNESCO 2023), with few women represented as mathematicians (then and now; e.g., Castaneda et al 2019;Mendick et al 2008). Ultimately, this phrase was removed from Barbie's phrase bank following widespread push-back (The Associated Press 1992).…”