Coordinating Theories of Learning to Account for Second-Grade Children's Arithmetical Understandings

Abstract

This article coordinates social constructivism and socioculturalism orientations to explain 2nd-grade children's reasoning with 2-digit quantities. From a social constructivist position, we illustrate how the classroom teacher and the students constituted what counted as an acceptable mathematical explanation. As children offered informal and conventional ways of interpreting problem situations, they were expected to reason with quantities in sensible ways. From a sociocultural position, we explain how the teacher's and students' contributions were situated within the mathematical ways of knowing constituted by the community at large. Particular children's contributions were clarified in terms of the ways in which they participated in socially organized activities. By coordinating these lenses, we argue the local classroom mathematical practices constrained and enabled the mathematical practices of the wider society.