Mathematics and Numeracy as Social and Spatial Practice

Nancy Ares,Dawn M Evans

doi:10.1155/2014/742197

Nancy Ares, Dawn M Evans

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/742197

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Abstract

This study of networked classroom activity proposes that a resource-rich point of view is powerful in increasing the engagement of marginalized students in mathematics classes. Our work brings attention to the values, beliefs, and power relations that infuse numeracy practices and adds attention to mathematical dimensions of social spaces. Findings show that the multiple modes available to communicate mathematically, to contribute, and the inquiry-oriented discussions invited students to draw on a variety of expressive modes to engage with complex mathematical concepts. Spatial analyses illuminate the relations among reproduction and production of knowledge, as well as the social space that characterized the networked classroom activity. They also reveal the affordance of emergent, transformed social spaces for youth’s use of a variety of social and cultural displays in producing mathematical knowledge. Students extended notions about social space by adding attention to affective features of classroom and school activities.

Highlights

We hope with this study to contribute to the literature that illuminates the successful participation of marginalized students in secondary mathematics classes
We examine numeracy as a social practice that creates social space, considering in particular its productive nature, or how it is implicated in the construction of space that has social, historical, cultural, and mathematical dimensions, all of which are infused with relations of power [9]
How are numeracy and social practices changing classroom social space? Why and into what is this space changing as a result of youths’ engagement in numeracy practices?. We find this approach promising in its attention to agency and to the variety of ways in which people engage in numeracy practices, as well as the connections among school, home, and community practices that have mathematical activity as central features

Summary

Introduction

We hope with this study to contribute to the literature that illuminates the successful participation of marginalized students in secondary mathematics classes. Moschkovich [1] juxtaposed three theoretical stances to examine how each would guide the analysis of two Latina students’ construction of understanding and communication about properties of rectangles and about slope In that article, she illuminated what was learned and what was missed in adopting the theories’ principles, arguing that a sociocultural lens provided ways to understand linguistic and interactional resources the participants were drawing upon that were missed in vocabulary acquisition and social construction of meaning perspectives. She illuminated what was learned and what was missed in adopting the theories’ principles, arguing that a sociocultural lens provided ways to understand linguistic and interactional resources the participants were drawing upon that were missed in vocabulary acquisition and social construction of meaning perspectives We approach this analysis in that it is an exercise in examining what we see when we take a social spatial theoretical position and use its central tenets to analyze classroom activity and interaction

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