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Educational Paths to Mathematics pp 15–32Cite as

Re-interpreting Students’ Interest in Mathematics: Youth Culture and Subjectivity

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Part of the book series: Advances in Mathematics Education ((AME))

Abstract

This chapter argues that in Western, developed societies, young people’s decreasing engagement in mathematics has to do fundamentally with a cultural gap between the forms of subjectivity promoted by mathematics as areas of schooling, and the forms of subjectivity experienced by students in their everyday life. While the organization of mathematics in schooling is deeply rooted in Modernity and requires students to embody its core values in order to be successful, current culture offers a myriad of projects of becoming that compete effectively with school forms of subjectivity. An understanding of the youth’s lack of interest in terms of the cultural gap places mathematics education as a field of practice in the realm of the cultural politics of our time. Such displacement may offer alternative ways of thinking and acting with respect to youth’s engagement with mathematics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Paola Valero

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  1. Paola Valero
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Correspondence to Paola Valero .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Uwe Gellert

  2. Facultat de Formació del Professorat Departament de Didàctica de les Ciències Experimentals i la Matemàtica, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Joaquim Giménez Rodríguez

  3. Management de l’Information et des Opérations, ESCP Europe, Paris, France

    Corinne Hahn

  4. Department of Sciences of Pre-School Education and of Educational Design, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

    Sonia Kafoussi

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Valero, P. (2015). Re-interpreting Students’ Interest in Mathematics: Youth Culture and Subjectivity. In: Gellert, U., Giménez Rodríguez, J., Hahn, C., Kafoussi, S. (eds) Educational Paths to Mathematics. Advances in Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15410-7_2

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