Definition
The role of authority relations in mathematics education.
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As a topic for inquiry, authority enters into mathematics education by way of two main arguments. The first is that because sociology, anthropology, and politics are relevant to understanding mathematics education, as is discussed elsewhere in this encyclopedia, authority must be as well, being a central construct in all these attendant fields; indeed, any treatment of power, hierarchy, and social regulation and relations must refer to the notion of authority in some way. The second argument, more specific to mathematics education per se, is that, owing to the perception of mathematics as certain and final, the discipline itself is authoritarian, at least in a manner of speaking. Whether or not authority can be attributed to mathematics strictly speakingis moot of course; however, because of this perception of mathematics, authority, often in matters having little to do with mathematics, tends to be...
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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Fried, M.N. (2014). Authority and Mathematics Education. In: Lerman, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_14
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