Abstract
The idea that mathematical knowledge is embodied is increasingly taking hold in the mathematics education literature. Yet there are challenges to the existing conceptualizations: There tend to be breaks between (a) the living and experienced body (flesh) and linguistic forms of thought, (b) individual and collective forms of knowing, and (c) the material body and the source of intentionality. Grounded in material phenomenology, we theorize the living body as semiotic expression that not only grounds thought but also leads to its development. We provide a detailed case study that elucidates the three ways in which the living body serves as sign for the growth of a second-grade student’s geometric understanding and the other bodies he interacts with.
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Acknowledgments
This research project was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are grateful to Jean-François Maheux and Bruno Jayme who helped us with the collection of data. We also wish to express our sincere thanks to the first and second grade students, their regular teacher, and the teacher assistants who supported us during the weeks of the study. Finally, we are indebted to the reviewers of this paper. Their close readings of the manuscript provided critical feedback that greatly contributed to the development of this work.
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Thom, J.S., Roth, WM. Radical embodiment and semiotics: toward a theory of mathematics in the flesh. Educ Stud Math 77, 267–284 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-010-9293-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-010-9293-y