Abstract/Summary

Let me start this article with a paradox. According to the UK’s Joint Council for Qualifications (2016), while only 7.7% of all female UK candidates chose to pursue A Level in Mathematics in the 2015/2016 academic year (compared to 15.1% of all male UK candidates), more girls (64.2%) proportionally achieved Grade A*-B than boys (64%) in the subject. Similarly, while only 0.9% of all female UK candidates chose to pursue A Level in Further Mathematics (compared to 2.9% of all male UK candidates), more girls (77.6%) achieved Grade A*-B than their male counterparts (76.5%) in the subject. Whilst it is evident from the data that girls are no less intellectually capable and no less mathematically minded than their male peers, they are significantly less likely to participate in post-16 mathematical subjects. In the context of the UK (and arguably in several other countries around the world), such paradox has become a norm. Girls – for some reasons – choose to associate themselves less with mathematics.