The possibilities of feminist poststructural discourse analysis as an approach to gender research in the mathematics classroom

Abstract

Theories of gender and race in mathematics education predominately remain unchanged in recent years (Damarin, 2008; Parks & Schmeichel, 2012), with feminism not always seen as relevant to mathematics education. New theories and methodologies related to gender create possibilities to reinvigorate gender research in mathematics education and offer opportunities for students at the margins to be seen and read as mathematically powerful. In this paper, I propose feminist poststructural discourse analysis as an alternative methodology in mathematics education to study gender and racial (in)equity in mathematics classrooms. I describe the theoretical underpinnings of the methodology (i.e., feminist poststructural theory), three main projects of discourse analysis within a feminist poststructural paradigm, and introduce Baxter's (2003) feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) methodology. Through one conceptualization of feminist poststructural discourse analysis study in a seventh grade mathematics classroom in the United States, I exemplify an analysis using Baxter’s denotative and connotative textual analysis methods and argue the productive possibilities of FPDA research.