Gender issues in adult and vocational mathematics education

This paper will attempt to provide a critical analysis of some of the social and political contexts of mathematics education in the adult and vocational education and training sectors with particular reference to gender issues. After a brief overview of recent policy developments and a review of papers selected from the literature on gender equity, it will then compare and contrast curricular constraints of previous and current political eras, and use some text by way of illustration to argue that vocational education and training in mathematics neither serves the interests of the individual student nor the (potential) employer, and is far removed from seriously addressing issues of gender equity.

[1]  Gender Justice and the Mathematics Curriculum: Four Perspectives , 1996 .

[2]  Patrick Ainley,et al.  Vocational education and training , 1990 .

[3]  M. Dunne,et al.  Revealing Assumptions: Problematising Research on Gender and Mathematics and Science Education , 1996 .

[4]  Sandra Taylor,et al.  Equity and the new post‐compulsory education and training policies in Australia: a progressive or regressive agenda? , 1994 .

[5]  M. Campbell,et al.  These Things Just Happen’: Talk, Text, and Curriculum Reform , 1995 .

[6]  S. Billett.  The Transfer Problem Distinguishing Between Sociocultural and Community of Practice , 1996 .

[7]  L. Angus,et al.  Professional Practice in Education in an Era of Contractualism: Possibilities, Problems and Paradoxes , 1996 .

[8]  Jeremy Kilpatrick,et al.  International handbook of mathematics education , 1997 .

[9]  Stieg Mellin-Olsen.  The politics of mathematics education , 1987 .

[10]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[11]  R. Sefton.  Breathing Life into Training: A Model of Integrated Training. , 1994 .

[12]  M. Belenky.  Women's Ways Of Knowing , 1986 .

[13]  D. Anderson,et al.  Participation and Access in TAFE: Social Service or Economic Utility?. , 1996 .

[14]  Mogens Allan Niss,et al.  Goals of Mathematics Teaching , 1996 .

[15]  Andrew Davis.  Philosophy of Mathematics Education , 1992 .

[16]  Paul Ernest,et al.  The Philosophy of Mathematics Education , 2003 .

[17]  Celia Hoyles,et al.  The visibility of meanings: Modelling the mathematics of banking , 1996, Int. J. Comput. Math. Learn..

[18]  Don Cohen.  Crossroads in Mathematics: Standards for Introductory College Mathematics before Calculus. , 1995 .

[19]  P. Dowling.  A sociological analysis of school mathematics texts , 1996 .

[20]  Gail E. FitzSimons,et al.  Adults and Mathematics (Adult Numeracy) , 1996 .

[21]  J. Lange,et al.  Using and Applying Mathematics in Education , 1996 .

[22]  R. Bagnall.  Pluralising continuing education and training in a postmodern world: whither competence? , 1994 .