Mathematics Education and Subjectivity - Cultures and Cultural Renewal

This book is centrally concerned with how mathematics education is represented and how we understand mathematical teaching and learning with view to changing them. It considers teachers, students and researchers. It explores their mathematical thinking and the concepts that this thought produces. But also how these concepts acquire cultural layers that mediate our apprehension. The book examines some of the linguistic and socio-cultural filters that influence mathematical understanding. But above all it introduces some contemporary theories of human subjectivity, in which subjectivity is seen primarily as consequential to, rather than productive of, our attempts to represent or categorise the world in which we live. That is, our sense of who we are results from our attempts to see ourselves against the various versions of the world that we encounter. Such theories trouble the very notion of mathematical "concepts" as apprehended by "humans". And in foregrounding this concern with subjectivity the book considers mathematics rather differently to styles more familiar in many instances of mathematics education research. The book proposes that mathematics can provoke us to think differently about our world and as a result enable our transformative capacities. Such an orientation may disturb our understanding of what mathematics is, how it exists in an "objective" sense, insofar as mathematical objects can be derived from social filters being applied to the world, but also serve as filters on the world capable of producing new social entities.

List of contents

About the author. - Acknowledgements. - 1 Introduction. - 2 The regulation of spatial perception.- 3 Cultural mediation of mathematics.- 4 Teacher conceptions of curriculum. 5 Subjectivity in mathematics education research.- 6 Lacanian subject of mathematical learning.- 7 The cultural renewal of mathematical learning.- 8 The political shaping of mathematical learning.- 9 Concluding remarks.- References.- Index.

About the author

Tony Brown Tony is Professor of Mathematics Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Originally from London, Tony trained in Canterbury and Exeter before returning to London where he taught mathematics for three years at Holland Park School. This was followed by three years as a mathematics teacher educator for Volunteer Service Overseas in Dominica in the Caribbean. In 1987, he completed his PhD at Southampton University. His doctoral research focused on language usage in mathematics classrooms, especially where the fluent use of English could not be assumed. After a spell as mathematics coordinator in a middle school in the Isle of Wight, Tony moved to Manchester Metropolitan University. Tony has headed the doctoral programme in education and participated in a range of other courses; he became a professor in 2000. Projects have included: Economic and Social Research Council-funded studies examining teacher education; piloting a distance-teaching programme enabling British volunteers based in Africa to research their own teaching practice within a programme of professional development; a General Medical Council-funded project on how senior doctors learn; and leading a team of emergency medicine doctors carrying out professionally focused research. Tony also spent two years on leave from Manchester at the University of Waikato where he became the first Professor of Mathematics Education in New Zealand. There he led a project funded by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research on Pasifika teachers working in New Zealand Schools. Tony has published two other books in Springer s Mathematics Education Library series. Mathematics Education and Language, first published in 1997, outlines his interest in mathematics in schools. A revised second edition appeared in 2001. Mathematics Education and Subjectivity (forthcoming) explores mathematical learning from the perspective of contemporary social theory. Meanwhile, Tony has also co-authored, with Liz Jones, Action Research and Postmodernism, which explores how teachers might carry out practitioner research within higher degrees. Regulative Discourses in Education: A Lacanian Perspective, co-authored with Dennis Atkinson and Janice England, offers an analysis of teacher practices through psychoanalytic theory. The Psychology of Mathematics Education, which he edited, introduces psychoanalytic theory as an alternative to more cognitive understandings of psychology. Tony has also written extensively in journals such as Educational Studies in Mathematics, For the Learning of Mathematics and the British Educational Research Journal.

Summary

This book is centrally concerned with how mathematics education is represented and how we understand mathematical teaching and learning with view to changing them. It considers teachers, students and researchers. It explores their mathematical thinking and the concepts that this thought produces. But also how these concepts acquire cultural layers that mediate our apprehension. The book examines some of the linguistic and socio-cultural filters that influence mathematical understanding. But above all it introduces some contemporary theories of human subjectivity, in which subjectivity is seen primarily as consequential to, rather than productive of, our attempts to represent or categorise the world in which we live. That is, our sense of who we are results from our attempts to see ourselves against the various versions of the world that we encounter. Such theories trouble the very notion of mathematical "concepts" as apprehended by "humans". And in foregrounding this concern with subjectivity the book considers mathematics rather differently to styles more familiar in many instances of mathematics education research. The book proposes that mathematics can provoke us to think differently about our world and as a result enable our transformative capacities. Such an orientation may disturb our understanding of what mathematics is, how it exists in an "objective" sense, insofar as mathematical objects can be derived from social filters being applied to the world, but also serve as filters on the world capable of producing new social entities.
 

Product details

• Authors: Tony Brown
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.08.2013
• EAN: 9789400737440
• ISBN: 978-94-0-073744-0
• No. of pages: 216
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 15 mm x 235 mm
• Weight: 359 g
• Illustrations: XI, 216 p.
• Series: Mathematics Education Library; Mathematics Education Library
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > School education, didactics, methodology; B, Education, Mathematics, Mathematics—Study and teaching, Mathematics Education