Signifying “students”, “teachers” and “mathematics”: a reading of a special issue

Abstract

This paper examines a Special Issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics comprising research reports centred on Peircian semiotics in mathematics education, written by some of the major authors in the area. The paper is targeted at inspecting how subjectivity is understood, or implied, in those reports. It seeks to delineate how the conceptions of subjectivity suggested are defined as a result of their being a function of the domain within which the authors reflexively situate themselves. The paper first considers how such understandings shape concepts of mathematics, students and teachers. It then explores how the research domain is understood by the authors as suggested through their implied positioning in relation to teachers, teacher educators, researchers and other potential readers.

Truth and the renewal of knowledge: the case of mathematics education

“…For this reason, it is not enough to see the goal of education as being solely to bring students into existing practices or current conceptions of mathematics. Many factors can dampen the responsiveness of pedagogical apparatus to new conditions, such as the prevalent structural definitions of "teacher", "student" and "mathematics" (Brown, 2008b). For example, a particular curriculum may emphasise skills or factual acquisition rather than facility with problem solving, or some areas of mathematics rather than others, or only certain forms of mathematics as being suitable for less able students.…”

“…Radford's paper appeared in a special issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics that I analysed with respect to how the terms "teachers", "students" and "mathematics" were variously understood(Brown, 2008b).…”

Theory in and for mathematics education: in pursuit of a critical agenda

“…Pais, however, assumes a wider political perspective. His paper surveys and extends an ongoing dialogue taking place in this journal between diverse neo-Vygotskian authors and those of a more Lacanian persuasion (Brown, 2008(Brown, , 2011(Brown, , 2012(Brown, , 2016Pais, 2015;Presmeg & Radford, 2008;Roth, 2012;Saenz-Ludlow & Presmeg, 2006). In it, he argues that capitalistic forces shape the language we use, such as in the use of market metaphors mentioned above.…”

“…Our community emerged from earlier collaborations on four edited collections, which included multiple chapters by over twenty authors from the group (Black, Mendick, & Solomon, 2009;Brown, 2008;De Freitas & Nolan 2008;Walshaw, 2004Walshaw, , 2010. Collectively, the papers in this special issue emanating from the second Mathematics Education and Contemporary Theory conference have taken forward the state of the art in contemporary theory and mathematics education-along with others that have been published in regular issues of Educational Studies in Mathematics and other locations mentioned above.…”

At the intersection between the subject and the political: a contribution to an ongoing discussion

“…In it, Brown introduces Lacan's semiotic apparatus to address the conflicting relation between the cognitive psychology of Piaget and the more socially oriented model of Vygotsky (that partly substantiates Radford's theory). The discussion continued with Brown's (2008b) publication of an article where he analyses how subjectivity is variously understood in a Special Issue of this journal featuring work written from a semiotic perspective, and to which Presmeg and Radford (2008) later respond in turn. Apparently, as it was emphasized by Presmeg and Radford (2008), the Lacanian subject introduced by Brown (2008a) is caught in an allencompassing social-psychic machinery, which makes it a marionette deprived of agency-contrary to the sociocultural approach where an autonomous subject actually intervenes and modifies its 1 Recent theoretical developments in mathematics education research are also founded on the need to articulate the relation between individual and social.…”