Drawing on identity theory, sociocultural theories of learning, and discourse analysis, I engage in an analysis of in-depth, individual interviews with four mathematics majors at an all-women’s college over an academic year. The purpose of this qualitative study is to gain insight into the mathematical identities of senior women mathematics majors, to understand their assumptions about what it means to know and do mathematics, and to describe the role that an all-women’s content might play in their descriptions of themselves or of mathematics. As such, I focus on identity, context, and Discourses. The concept of a mathematical identity–being recognized as a mathematical person in a given context–is central to this study. To this end, I pose the following research questions:What language do senior women mathematics majors at an all-women’s college use to describe their mathematical identity development?How might the context of an all-women’s mathematics department be described as relevant to students’ identity development? Specifically, what activities do mathematics majors at an all-women’s college describe as significant to their experience and how do they describe their relationship to others within that context?What mathematical Discourses do senior women mathematics majors at an all-women’s college know, assume, question, or reject? What seems to be the relationship between their identities and those Discourses? The first research question focuses on identity development and recognition, that is, how student’s discourse describes their mathematical identity development and other related identities. The second set of questions focuses on description of the particular all-women’s context of Metcalf, particularly the community practices and relationships. The third set of questions focuses on developing and understanding participants’ interpretive and evaluative models–specifically, about what it means to know and do mathematics as a woman. Overall, my aim is threefold: to be able to say something meaningful about (a) who these women are, (b) what meaning is ascribed to knowing / doing mathematics by these women, and (c) how the context of an all-women’s college seemed to shape their relationship with mathematics.
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