Expectancy Value Theory

   Many family members are hesitant to help their children as they, too, have mathematics anxiety and have avoided math for a long time, which unintentionally instills these fears in their children (Casad et al., 2015). Math anxiety can begin as early as preschool, when parents feel apprehensive and avoid discussing numbers and incorporating everyday number sense into their children's daily activities (Berkowitz et al., 2021). Students who perceive their parents as uncomfortable and anxious around mathematics are at a higher risk of developing math anxiety (Maloney, 2015). A student may develop MA because they internalize their parents' fears and view mathematical ability as fixed, believing they are either good or bad at math (Gonzalez-DeHass et al., 2024). Overall, a child's development of MA depends less on whether the parent already exhibits these feelings than on whether the child perceives them (Schaeffer et al., 2020). In a study on parent-child math anxiety, Casad et al. (2015) found that parental math anxiety predicted a significant portion of students' math educational outcomes, including self-efficacy, achievement, behaviors, and attitudes. Silver et al. (2021) also found a direct correlation between parental math anxiety/beliefs and students' math achievement. Therefore, a parent's level of MA affects two of the most critical aspects of a child’s education: attitudes toward mathematics and ultimate academic achievement (Becker et al., 2022; Simmons et al., 2024). As Bronfenbrenner (1979) explained, math anxiety does not exist in a vacuum but is significantly influenced by broader societal structures. Cultural structures, such as Eurocentrism, help explain how math has been taught historically and who is included in the conversation.