Gender research in education explores, among other things, the possible reasons for women’s lower rates of achievement and retention than those of men across STEM fields including mathematics. However, much of this scholarship, particularly in mathematics education, limits its analyses of gender to binary comparisons (namely, female-male or women-men) with males’ and men’s achievement and participation often held as standards for success (Leyva, in press). In addition, the sampled populations in this empirical work were mostly White, thus leaving mathematics achievement and participation among historically marginalized students of color at intersections of gender, race, and other social identities underexplored.
Analyses of gender as non-binary and dynamically shaped by other social identities (e.g., race, class, sexuality) hold promise in illuminating how mathematics operates as a White, heteronormatively masculinized discipline to shape variation in students’ experiences and thus further inform more inclusive educational opportunities. With mathematics serving as a gatekeeper for access to undergraduate STEM majors such as engineering and physics, the adoption of such analyses in higher education is critical for the advancement of socially-affirming learning and student support opportunities toward inclusion and broadened STEM participation.
(Image from Emily Griffith’s blog on Rhetorical Criticism.)
Feminist theory and research methodologies can be used to explore and disrupt forms of gender inequities in different parts of society, including education. Intersectionality, a theoretical perspective and methodology from Black feminist thought, allows for detailing forms of oppression and privilege that marginalized individuals uniquely experience at different intersections of their social identities such as gender, race, and sexuality (Crenshaw, 1991). In this blog post, I highlight the findings of intersectional studies from three interdisciplinary scholars — Dr. Lance McCready, Dr. Mia Ong, and Dr. Terrell Strayhorn – who pursued feminist analyses using queer of color critique, theories of body and embodiment, and the concept of othermothering. This blog post also raises questions about conceptual and methodological implications from this intersectional research for the advancement of more socially affirming undergraduate STEM educational opportunities. Please share your thoughts about the review, posed questions, and suggested references for other feminist scholarship in the comments section below.
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