GENDER POSITIONS AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTAINMENT IN LOCAL GEOMETRY

Abstract

Several studies that suggest for the inclusion of students’ cultural background into the mathematics curriculum fail to address gender roles within cultures and the impact it will have on the understanding of academic mathematics. This paper reports a study of high school students’ involvement in everyday material production and its connection to geometric performance, on 20 students from a rural setting secondary school, in Tigray, Ethiopia. An interview involving six questions each followed by a mathematical question was administered to the group of participating students. The analyses of the interview and the mathematical questions have come up with the following findings: (1) some everyday materials are identified as male-orientated and hence, the male students show better fluency in basic geometry for practical utility which have connections with their domain; (2) some other activities and the production of everyday materials are found as female-orientated and therefore, the female students demonstrated better performance in using basic procedures of geometry for practical utility; (3) both males and females demonstrated an enhanced transformation of the local mathematics into a corresponding global in relation to their domain-orientated activities; and (4) some other activities are found to be well (or equally)-orientated.