I actually started to scream: emotional and mathematical trauma from doing school mathematics homework

Abstract

Mathematics homework is an activity done by large numbers of students across the world. However, it is not without controversy, with concerns being raised about its academic value and whether parents have the appropriate resources to actively support or teach their children. In this article, we use the narratives of two 10-year-old girls to consider how emotional and mathematical trauma can arise from doing mathematics homework with family help. This is often the undiscussed outcome of homework interactions, but one that can have profound implications for relationships between children, their parents, the school and mathematics as a discipline. The way that the children described their and other participants' actions in the narratives provided information about the children's agency whilst doing school mathematics in the home. We discuss the opportunities and constraints on children doing homework as a consequence of the social and institutional relations that they operate within. The constraining influence of schooling over the opportunities provided within the home situations was the main determiner of the emotional and mathematical trauma experienced by the children.

School Career of One-sided Talented Students in Secondary Education in the Netherlands

“…Rather it prevented them from further increasing their skills and knowledge in the domain of their proficiency. Although the students of the current study did not report extreme feelings of frustration, their experiences are in line with feelings of students who perform well in Mathematics and poor in reading reported in other studies (Lange & Meaney, 2011). Experimenting with teaching at different levels for different school subjects could be a way to align learning and instruction with the ability levels of students. This would give students with, for example, a one-sided mathematic proficiency the opportunity to perform in the mathematical subjects at pre-university level and in the languages at senior general level.…”

Homework and Mathematics Learning: What Can We Learn from the TIMSS Series Studies in the Last Two Decades?

“…Homework is a diffi cult variable to study directly, uncontaminated by other variables. Researchers have found that the impact of homework on students is affected by many other factors (NSW Department of Education and Communication, 2012 ), such as students' understanding of the purpose of homework (e.g., Warton, 1997 ), their attitudes toward homework, learning and achievement (e.g., Cooper, Jackson, Nye, & Lindsay, 2001 ;Corno, 2000 ;Epstein, Simon, & Salinas, 1997 ;Lange & Meaney, 2011 ;O'Rourke-Ferrara, 1998 ), and their feelings of empowerment in the design and allocation of homework tasks (e.g., Cooper & Valentine, 2001 ;Smith, 2000 ;Warton, 2001 ). However, Blazer ( 2009 ) maintained that homework itself is also infl uenced by more factors than any other instructional strategy, including student ability, motivation, grade level, variation in homework completion (e.g., when and how), and home environment (e.g., Cooper et al, 2006 ;McPherson, 2005 ).…”

Large-Scale Studies in Mathematics Education

“…Homework is a diffi cult variable to study directly, uncontaminated by other variables. Researchers have found that the impact of homework on students is affected by many other factors (NSW Department of Education and Communication, 2012 ), such as students' understanding of the purpose of homework (e.g., Warton, 1997 ), their attitudes toward homework, learning and achievement (e.g., Cooper, Jackson, Nye, & Lindsay, 2001 ;Corno, 2000 ;212 Epstein, Simon, & Salinas, 1997 ;Lange & Meaney, 2011 ;O'Rourke-Ferrara, 1998 ), and their feelings of empowerment in the design and allocation of homework tasks (e.g., Cooper & Valentine, 2001 ;Smith, 2000 ;Warton, 2001 ). However, Blazer ( 2009 ) maintained that homework itself is also infl uenced by more factors than any other instructional strategy, including student ability, motivation, grade level, variation in homework completion (e.g., when and how), and home environment (e.g., Cooper et al, 2006 ;McPherson, 2005 ).…”