Vanderbilt Professor Claims Field of Mathematics Is Too ‘Masculinized’ | Breitbart News - Tech

Photo: Luis A. Leyva

Professor Luis A. Leyva, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at Vanderbilt University argues that the field of mathematics is too “masculinized,” which hurts women’s ability to compete in the field against men.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

“Mathematics has been documented as a power-laden and masculinized academic domain,” Professor Luis A. Leyva, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at Vanderbilt University wrote in a research paper titled “Unpacking the Male Superiority Myth and Masculinization of Mathematics at the Intersections.”

Leyva points to the difference in achievement and experience in the field of mathematics to social conditioning that leaves women behind and pushes men ahead. He believes that the disparities that exist, such as the general trend that boys perform better than girls, in the field of mathematics are exclusively the result of social conditioning. “It is, therefore, critical that scholars examine the influences of different contexts on students’ mathematics achievement and experiences at intersections of gender and other socially constructed identities,” Leyva writes towards the end of his paper.

So the real problem? That society has yet to realize that gender is simply a social construct. Once society progresses into an era of social justice enlightenment, female achievement in the field of mathematics should soar, at least according to Leyva’s prognosis.
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Additional resources

Luis A. Leyva

Journal for Research in Mathematics Education

Vol. 48, No. 4 (July 2017), pp. 397-433 

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5951/jresematheduc.48.4.0397  

 
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