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INVENTING THE MATHEMATICIAN: GENDER, RACE, AND OUR CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS by Sara N. Hottinger SUN Y Press, 2016, 205 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4384-6009-3
It is no secret to anyone who teaches mathematics that women and ethnic minority students are underrepresented in undergraduate and graduate mathematics programs. In Inventing the Mathematician: Gender, Race, and Our Cultural Understanding of Mathematics, Sara Hottinger investigates how our cultural understanding of mathematics is constructed, and how that understanding influences the ease with which people can conceive of themselves as mathematicians. She thus argues that becoming a mathematician is as much a function of how easily people can see themselves as a mathematician as it is of the mathematics itself. The personal view one acquires as to what mathematics is and what defines a mathematician is called mathematical subjectivity. Hottinger argues that "normative mathematical subjectivity limits the ability of women and people of color to succeed in mathematics", (p. 11) She examines four areas where the nature of mathematics and the idea of a mathematician are constructed: mathematics textbooks, the history of mathematics, mathematical portraiture, and ethnomathematics.
The departure of girls from mathematics begins in middle school. Chapter 2 looks at highly-rated middle school mathematics textbooks to see what cultural picture of mathematics is being portrayed by them. While these textbooks generally maintain gender neutrality, Hottinger finds...