Articulating the Immanent: Children Unfolding Numbers

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss how pedagogical practices, methods and materials produce processes and assemblages that regulate the positions and kinds of meaning that are allowed to emerge in the classroom. The empirical material used in this article consists of ethnographic fieldstudy observations and interviews at a Swedish primary school. An episode in a maths lesson is described and analysed using concepts and metaphors developed by Deleuze and Guattari. The observations show how the students at one point during the lesson turn from counting and repeating the factual number of cats in a picture to discussing the existence of potential cats. Two pedagogical trajectories are identified and analysed. One relates to the task of determining and conceptualising predefined numbers, and the other consists of flows and forces that explore, embody and unfold ways of relating to numbers that challenge the dominance of cognitive rationality and linear processes of school mathematics. The article ends with a discussion of pedagogy for the primary school that combines the real and the immanent. This approach opens for a mutual articulation of what is and what can be, but also for students' influence on educational practice.

Remythologizing Mystery in Mathematics: Teaching for Open Landscapes versus Concealment

“…Global economic and political reasons, as outlined in rhetoric from PISA (Programme for International Assessment and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) [31], claim "the need for individuals and nations to understand the role that competence in mathematics plays in today's global innovation economy" [32] (p. 310). Thus, OECD countries invest more than 230 billion US dollars in mathematics education annually [33] (p. 186).…”