A Perspective on Achieving Equality in Mathematics for Fourth Grade Girls: A Special Case

Abstract

How can and do teachers create equal access within everyday classroom lessons and establish opportunities for girls to participate fully? What contexts contribute to equity? In contrast to classrooms where boys receive more attention, encouragement, and content-area instruction, Ms. Jeffreys conducts whole class lessons in her fourth grade classroom where girls participate equally and successfully with boys during mathematics. To ascertain what contributes to the equal participation, I use interactional analysis to closely examine two mathematics lessons. Part of Ms. Jeffreys’ success lies in altering normative classroom discourse and in the assertive context created and sustained by the math, science, and technology magnet school setting. However, another layer of complexity is introduced: to teach her students at their instructional level, Ms. Jeffreys groups her students by their ability to pass timed multiplication tests. By instituting a form of tracking, Ms. Jeffreys also legitimates girls as knowledgeable, both socially and academically, by their membership in the top math group. While policy guidelines exhort teachers to provide equal access to curriculum, actually accomplishing a first step of access to participation in the routine day-to-day classroom talk remains extremely difficult.