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Discursive Perspectives on Learning and Teaching Mathematics

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Discourse and Education

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

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Abstract

This chapter traces the development of mathematics education research that investigates learning and teaching mathematics in classrooms from a discursive perspective. By discursive perspective, we intend research that views participating in mathematics as entailing particular ways of communicating about mathematical ideas, including inscribing, symbolizing, and representing mathematical ideas and concepts with tools. Further, those ways of communicating are situated in particular social, cultural, historical, and political contexts. Discursive perspectives emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The turn to discourse was precipitated by questions regarding how instruction might be organized to support students to develop deep and enduring understandings of mathematics. Early influences included studies of social interaction in education, developments in linguistics, and sociocultural theories of learning. Major contributions include established lines of inquiry focused on how school mathematics discourse can better approximate disciplinary mathematics and support enduring learning. More recent lines of inquiry concern equity in participation in disciplinary forms of discourse and multisemiotic perspectives on learning and teaching mathematics. Key problems and difficulties within the field include the conceptualization of discourse more generally and of mathematics specifically, and of what counts as relevant context in studies of discourse. Future directions for research include how to enable historically disadvantaged groups of students to participate substantially in mathematically rich discursive activity and how teachers learn to develop such forms of practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Miller Hall 115E,, 353600, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Kara Jackson & Hannah Nieman

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  1. Kara Jackson
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  2. Hannah Nieman
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Correspondence to Kara Jackson or Hannah Nieman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, Univ of Pennsylnia Graduate School of Education, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Stanton Wortham

  2. Tampa, Florida, USA

    Deoksoon Kim

  3. University of Auckland, Auckland, Australia

    Stephen May

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Jackson, K., Nieman, H. (2015). Discursive Perspectives on Learning and Teaching Mathematics. In: Wortham, S., Kim, D., May, S. (eds) Discourse and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02322-9_28-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02322-9_28-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02322-9

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