Chapter 6: Gender Mainstreaming: Maintaining Attention on Gender Equality

We have gender equality in mathematics education in Australia, don’t we? This is the prevailing view among mathematics teachers, and, leading up to the turn of the century, the gender gaps in achievement, participation, and affect in Australia were closing and in some studies not significant (For- gasz, Leder, & Vale, 2000). However since the turn of the century, while this trend has continued to be evident in some studies, gender differences are persistent and even widening in affect, participation, and achievement for some grade levels and domains in mathematics (Vale & Bartholomew, 2008; Vale, Forgasz, & Horne, 2004). How could this happen?