Abstract
This article suggests that a critical perspective of the notion of social representations can offer useful insights into understanding practices of teaching and learning in mathematics classrooms with immigrant students. Drawing on literature using social representations, previous empirical studies are revisited to examine three specific questions: what are the dominant social representations that permeate the mathematics classroom with immigrant students? What impact do these social representations have on classroom practices? What are the spaces for changing these practices through becoming reflective and critically aware of these representations? These questions are addressed mostly in relation to teachers’ representations, though the article also draws on data from research with students and parents to illustrate the diversity of representations and to argue for a critical and reflective perspective.
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Notes
The group EMiCS, Educació Matemàtica i Context Sociocultural [Mathematics Education and Sociocultural Context] is a Grup de Recerca Consolidat, 2005SGR 00211, Direcció General de Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya. Guida de Abreu, Sandra Burgos, Núria Gorgorió, Montserrat Prat and Montserrat Santesteban are members of the group. The authors would like to express their thanks to the members of the EMiCS’ Wednesday Seminars, who were a lively and critical audience for the earlier versions of this article.
The research reported that is being developed in the Catalan context is supported by the Dirección General de Investigación, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura (research grant SEJ2007-60111), and the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya (research grant 2006ARAI 0001).
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Gorgorió, N., de Abreu, G. Social representations as mediators of practice in mathematics classrooms with immigrant students. Educ Stud Math 72, 61–76 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9183-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9183-3