ABSTRACT. Several studies that suggest for the inclusion of students’ cultural
background into the mathematics curriculum fail to address gender roles within cultures
and the impact it will have on the understanding of academic mathematics. This paper
reports a study of high school students’ involvement in everyday material production and
its connection to geometric performance, on 20 students from a rural setting secondary
school, in Tigray, Ethiopia. An interview involving six questions each followed by a
mathematical question was administered to the group of participating students. The
analyses of the interview and the mathematical questions have come up with the following
findings: (1) some everyday materials are identified as male-orientated and hence, the
male students show better fluency in basic geometry for practical utility which have
connections with their domain; (2) some other activities and the production of everyday
materials are found as female-orientated and therefore, the female students demonstrated
better performance in using basic procedures of geometry for practical utility; (3) both
males and females demonstrated an enhanced transformation of the local mathematics into
a corresponding global in relation to their domain-orientated activities; and (4) some other
activities are found to be well (or equally)-orientated