Kate Le Roux
Kate le Roux is an Associate Professor in Language Development in the Academic Development Programme at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research is located at the intersection of language, mathematics and the learning of disciplinary knowledge in science and engineering, with a particular focus on equity, power and identity in multilingual higher education contexts. Kate’s research and collaborative education development with disciplinary lecturers at key transitions from school into and through university draws theoretically on critical linguistics, critical mathematics education, multilingualism and multimodality for learning, and Southern theory.
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survey work that has been done. In the spirit of opening and inviting new questions and research directions, we focus on what it means to take mathematics education for sustainable futures seriously, for how we practise and imagine mathematics education, including established topics such as curriculum, knowledge, pedagogy, teacher education, language,
modelling, and technology. We structure our review around eight invitations (here arranged into six sections) in the call for collection articles. Each section ends with further invitations for potential authors, or others, wanting to locate and chart their own work in the space. We end drawing out two themes that resonate across the invitations: attention to
who and what is marginalised and the importance of a deep reflexivity in our choice/use of concepts. This text is part of the article collection entitled “Mathematics Education for Sustainable Futures” (available at https:// link. sprin ger. com/ colle ctions/ aceba agbha).
This article provides a detailed qualitative analysis of the thinking of 15 Grade 8 and Grade 9 learners as they talk about their solutions to linear equations in interviews. The article stems from a study that describes whether learners use mathematically endorsable narratives to explain and justify their solutions. Sfard’s theory of commognition is used to develop a framework for analysis of their discourse.
The findings show that all learners use ritualised rather than explorative discourse, characterised by applying strict rules to operations with disobjectified entities. The only mathematical objects they produce endorsed narratives about are positive integers. Thus they do not meet the relevant curriculum requirements. Nevertheless, the analytic tools – adapted from Sfard specifically for the study of linear equations – give a particularly nuanced account of differences in the learners’ ritualised discourse. For example, some learners used endorsed narratives about negative integers, algebraic terms and the structure of an equation when
prompted by the interviewer.
There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that any learners are in transition to explorative discourse. However, the article shows that learner discourse is a rich resource for teachers to understand the extent to which learners are thinking exploratively, and offers suggestions for
how their thinking can be shifted. This is an opportunity for teacher professional development and further research.
the proposed questions through a back-and-forth dialogue. The dialogue draws on experiences from a writing collaboration in which the authors—“the researchers”—wrote up for publication research conducted in their respective contexts of the Political North and Political South. Both research projects focused on how mathematics students—“the participants”—narrate and hence position themselves and are narrated and positioned by mathematics education and sociopolitical discourses
in research publications.
survey work that has been done. In the spirit of opening and inviting new questions and research directions, we focus on what it means to take mathematics education for sustainable futures seriously, for how we practise and imagine mathematics education, including established topics such as curriculum, knowledge, pedagogy, teacher education, language,
modelling, and technology. We structure our review around eight invitations (here arranged into six sections) in the call for collection articles. Each section ends with further invitations for potential authors, or others, wanting to locate and chart their own work in the space. We end drawing out two themes that resonate across the invitations: attention to
who and what is marginalised and the importance of a deep reflexivity in our choice/use of concepts. This text is part of the article collection entitled “Mathematics Education for Sustainable Futures” (available at https:// link. sprin ger. com/ colle ctions/ aceba agbha).
This article provides a detailed qualitative analysis of the thinking of 15 Grade 8 and Grade 9 learners as they talk about their solutions to linear equations in interviews. The article stems from a study that describes whether learners use mathematically endorsable narratives to explain and justify their solutions. Sfard’s theory of commognition is used to develop a framework for analysis of their discourse.
The findings show that all learners use ritualised rather than explorative discourse, characterised by applying strict rules to operations with disobjectified entities. The only mathematical objects they produce endorsed narratives about are positive integers. Thus they do not meet the relevant curriculum requirements. Nevertheless, the analytic tools – adapted from Sfard specifically for the study of linear equations – give a particularly nuanced account of differences in the learners’ ritualised discourse. For example, some learners used endorsed narratives about negative integers, algebraic terms and the structure of an equation when
prompted by the interviewer.
There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that any learners are in transition to explorative discourse. However, the article shows that learner discourse is a rich resource for teachers to understand the extent to which learners are thinking exploratively, and offers suggestions for
how their thinking can be shifted. This is an opportunity for teacher professional development and further research.
the proposed questions through a back-and-forth dialogue. The dialogue draws on experiences from a writing collaboration in which the authors—“the researchers”—wrote up for publication research conducted in their respective contexts of the Political North and Political South. Both research projects focused on how mathematics students—“the participants”—narrate and hence position themselves and are narrated and positioned by mathematics education and sociopolitical discourses
in research publications.
but which potentially makes a theoretical contribution beyond the context in a way that does not universalise.