Gender and performance disparity in mathematics: A study of South Western Uganda
Gender has long been considered a factor contributing to differences in performance for male and female students in diverse educational disciplines and levels. Although male and female students are taught in the same classrooms in most Ugandan schools, there have been noticeable differences in Mat...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
African Educational Research Journal
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12493/453 |
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| Summary: | Gender has long been considered a factor contributing to differences in performance for male and female
students in diverse educational disciplines and levels. Although male and female students are taught in the
same classrooms in most Ugandan schools, there have been noticeable differences in Mathematics
performance in national examinations across the country. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare male
and female students’ performance in Mathematics and to establish factors accounting for the differences.
Using the Mixed method design, a sample size of 222 participants was recruited. The major findings
revealed that variation in Mathematics performance cannot be attributable to gender. The study
deconstructs the common gender-biased assumption that girls are naturally a ‘weaker sex’ and hence likely
to embrace subjects that are considered ‘soft’ such as language, literacy, communication skills, social
sciences among others. Such assumptions commonly fronted inadvertently without considering possible
negative consequences, are based on societal construction of social differences with no substantive
evidence as demonstrated in this study. |
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