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Researching research: mathematics education in the Political

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Abstract

We discuss contemporary theories in mathematics education in order to do research on research. Our strategy consists of analysing discursively and ideologically recent key publications addressing the role of theory in mathematics education research. We examine how the field fabricates its object of research by deploying Foucault’s notion of bio-politics—mainly to address the object “learning”—and Žižek’s ideology critique—to address the object “mathematics”. These theories, which have already been used in the field to research teaching and learning, have a great potential to contribute to a reflexivity of research on its discourses and effects. Furthermore, they enable us to present a clear distinction between what has been called the sociopolitical turn in mathematics education research and what we call a positioning of mathematics education (research) practices in the Political.

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Notes

  1. A slogan propagated in the last decades by national policy and curricula (e.g. the UK’s national curriculum, see http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary), professional organisations (e.g. NCTM, 2000) and researchers (e.g. Presmeg, 2010b) alike.

  2. The examples are numerous, and Lundin (2008) traced this discourse to at least the end of the nineteenth century.

  3. In recent works (Pais, 2011, 2012a, b; Pais, Fernandes, Matos & Alves, 2012; Pais & Valero, 2011), we have chosen particular topics of research—equity, transfer, ethnomathematics, critical mathematics education—and addressed them as ideologies designed to conceal the real of what we call the economy of schools.

  4. But also “politics of recognition” or “identity politics”. See Butler, Laclau and Žižek (2000) for an account of the terms in which the relation between “politics” and “Political” is carried within contemporary theory.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues from the Science and Mathematics Education Research Group (SMERG), the reviewers, the editors, and Sverker Lundin for their discussion and comments on previous versions of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University, Sohngårdsholmsvej, 2, 9000, Aalborg, Denmark

    Alexandre Pais & Paola Valero

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  1. Alexandre Pais
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Correspondence to Paola Valero.

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Pais, A., Valero, P. Researching research: mathematics education in the Political. Educ Stud Math 80, 9–24 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-012-9399-5

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