Prospective Elementary Teachers' Perceptions of Gender Differences in Children's Attitudes Toward Mathematics.

Schwartz, Catherine S.; Sinicrope, Rose

Prospective elementary teachers hold preconceived ideas about elementary school students' attitudes toward mathematics. We found that there exists a gender bias with prospective teachers expecting girls to have negative attitudes toward mathematics and boys more likely to have positive attitudes toward mathematics. We found that these expectations exist for both prospective teachers in a traditional undergraduate degree program and prospective teachers in an alternative licensure graduate degree program. We also found that these expectations do change with the completion of a mathematics methods course and classroom experiences.

ELEMENTARY school teachers; CHILDHOOD attitudes; SENSORY perception; GENDER differences (Psychology) in children; MATHEMATICS; GENDER stereotypes; ANXIETY

School Science & Mathematics, 2013, Vol 113, Issue 8, p410

0036-6803

Academic Journal

10.1111/ssm.12045