Browsing by Author "Enjala, Tytti"

Aims. The purpose of this study is to examine how girls attitude towards mathematics change in pri- mary school and what kinds of factors effect their attitude changes. Both national and international research results shows that girls attitude to mathematics seems to weaken from third grade forward. One of curriculums aim is to inspire pupil's to learn mathematics, so the weakning of the attitudes conflicts with that aim. Methods. This study is a literature review. Data for this study were collected mostly from Helsinki university databases. The sources of this study were national and international research, doctoral dis- sertations, theses, and study reports. Results and conclusions. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that the main reasons for girls weakened attitudes seems to be environmental factors. There are number of different factors explaining diffenrences between genders. The differences are explained by both biological and enviromental factors. The main enviromental factors are negative experiences in math, streotypes that are transmitted from parents, school and elsewhere in society. Boys and girls are also treated dif- ferently by teachers and parents.