Book Review Section 4

This article focuses on the effectiveness of antihomophobia discourses and explores the process of teaching and learning about heteronormativity. The author offers an interrogation of the regulatory fictions within heteronormativity and frameworks of resistance and examines attempts to move beyond established views of sexual minority students and explore the ways in which queer research has, and continues to, bring a counternarrative to staid liberal notions of reform and the well-intentioned rhetoric of diversity and difference. This analysis raises critical questions about the possibility of moving beyond standard antihomophobia curricula and questions approaches such as the one-off lecture format and other condensed discussions of heteronormativity and homophobia.     

Book Review Section 2

A persistent belief in American culture is that males both outperform and have a higher inherent aptitude for mathematics than females. Using data from two school districts in two different states in the United States, this study used longitudinal multilevel modeling to examine whether overall performance on standardized as well as classroom tests reveals a gender difference in mathematics performance. The results suggest that both male and female students demonstrated the same growth trend in mathematics performance (as measured by standardized test scores) over time, but females' mathematics grade-point average is significantly higher than males. These results are discussed in the context of present day standardized assessment in the United States that may motivate teachers to focus on higher expectations for mathematics performance regardless of gender, thus challenging cultural beliefs that stigmatize mathematics as masculine in the United States.     

Book Review Section 3

Who should research and represent the experiences of the other in scholarly discourse? Some scholars argue that an oppressed group should be researched and represented exclusively by the members of that group, in particular, the privileged should be excluded from representing the oppressed. This policy raises pertinent questions concerning the relationship between the other and identity and the relationship between positionality and representation. To answer these questions, I consider why representation of the other is of such moment. From this consideration, I turn to an examination of the concept of the other that addresses issues of identity, especially positionality. Finally, I explore the relationship between scholars' positionings and their representations of the other. After assessing of the foregoing, I argue for an inclusive rather than exclusive representation of the other.