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Mathematics Education and Language Diversity pp 175–192Cite as

Tensions in Teaching Mathematics in Contexts of Language Diversity

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Part of the book series: New ICMI Study Series ((NISS))

Abstract

Throughout the literature on mathematics teaching in multilingual, bilingual or second language classrooms and other contexts of language diversity, there has been a shift from thinking in terms of deficits and barriers to a discourse of dilemmas and tensions. While this work has highlighted the complexity of multilingual mathematics classrooms, it has so far been largely descriptive in nature. This chapter draws on a theoretical perspective based on Bakhtin (The dialogic imagination: Four essays, Austin, TX) that explains how these tensions arise. We develop these ideas through four cases, through which we examine the relationship between different language-related tensions and the classroom contexts in which they arise, focusing particularly on the teacher’s role in mediating these tensions in classroom practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A detailed analysis of this example can be found in Planas and Setati Phakeng (2014).

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Acknowledgments

RB’s data collection was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. RB is grateful to Adil Dsousa and Élysée Cadet for their assistance. All four authors are grateful to the participants in their research projects.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, 145 J-J-Lussier, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1N 6N5

    Richard Barwell

  2. Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

    Lim Chapsam

  3. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Thulisile Nkambule & Mamokgethi Setati Phakeng

Authors
  1. Richard Barwell
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  2. Lim Chapsam
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  3. Thulisile Nkambule
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  4. Mamokgethi Setati Phakeng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Barwell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Richard Barwell

  2. Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia

    Philip Clarkson

  3. Institute for Educational Development East Africa, Aga Khan University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Anjum Halai

  4. University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi

    Mercy Kazima

  5. University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Judit Moschkovich

  6. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Núria Planas

  7. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Núria Planas  & Mamokgethi Setati Phakeng  & 

  8. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Paola Valero

  9. Ministerio de Educación, Lima, Peru

    Martha Villavicencio Ubillús

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Open Access This book was originally published with exclusive rights reserved by the Publisher in 2015 and was licensed as an open access publication in March 2021 under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.

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Barwell, R., Chapsam, L., Nkambule, T., Phakeng, M.S. (2016). Tensions in Teaching Mathematics in Contexts of Language Diversity. In: Barwell, R., et al. Mathematics Education and Language Diversity. New ICMI Study Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14511-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14511-2_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14510-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14511-2

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