The cultural life of mathematics: the influence of media representations of mathematics and mathematicians on relationships with the subject
H. Mendick (London Metropolitan University and Goldsmiths, UK)
As Yvette Solomon highlights, take-up of mathematics in post-compulsory education has declined. I draw on data from an ESRC and UKRC funded study that juxtaposes this decreasing engagement with mathematics with people’s increasing engagement with popular culture. I analyse representations of mathematicians in cultural texts. In particular, I compare representations of men and women doing mathematics in A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting, Numb3rs, Proof, Mean Girls and The Da Vinci Code. I show how these texts reinforce associations of mathematics, and by extension mathematically related areas of study such as engineering, with masculinity (and with whiteness and middle-classness).