Paradox, partiality and promise : a politics for girls in school mathematics : a thesis submitted to the Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

This study explores the question of girls in school mathematics through gendered subjectivity. Its theoretical and empirical approach provides a different analysis and sketches an alternative politics for girls in mathematics, not only in its vision but also in the level and style of intervention it advocates. Using ideas drawn from poststructuralist theory and linking these ideas to the political agendas of feminism, it examines, in the first place, how the girl became an historical problem for mathematics education. Its point of departure then shifts the focus of the girl away from an epistemological account of identity to one which constitutes the girl within practices and discourses. Following from this, and by describing how gender is enacted around school mathematics, an alternative approach to knowledge of gendered schooling is developed and new spaces are created for political work in the field.