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Unpacking understanding: the (re)search for the Holy Grail of mathematics education

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Abstract

In this article, I deconstruct the concept of understanding in mathematics education, examining how it is spoken into being and what work it does for primary school student teachers. I use poststructural analysis to unpack interviews with a student teacher, Jane, drawn from a larger longitudinal study. I show how she negotiates tensions between “romantic” discourses of understanding within mathematics education research and “functional” discourses of understanding within neoliberal mathematics education policy. A romantic discourse constructs understanding as an aspect of being resulting from the natural curiosity of the child. A functional discourse constructs understanding as performances within which the child is indistinguishable from automata. I argue that Jane takes on both functionality and romanticism, but they collide creating a disorderly discourse of understanding that reproduces inequity.

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Notes

  1. Compulsory secondary education in England is from 11 to 16 years of age.

  2. In the US version (Boaler, 2002), the division is called reform and traditional.

  3. Situated cognition relies on the principle that learning is relational to the context.

  4. Communities of practice refer to a group of people with a shared interest whose development relies on learning from each other.

  5. The Primary National Strategy is the part of the Strategy concerned with Key Stages 1 and 2 that cover primary schooling from ages 5–11.

  6. A white paper is a name for a parliamentary paper pronouncing government policies and position.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to the students involved in this paper and all the students I have worked with. Special thanks to Heather Mendick for conversations and comments on my work.

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  1. School of Education, Durham University, Durham, DH1 1TA, UK

    Anna Llewellyn

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  1. Anna Llewellyn
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Correspondence to Anna Llewellyn.

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Llewellyn, A. Unpacking understanding: the (re)search for the Holy Grail of mathematics education. Educ Stud Math 81, 385–399 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-012-9409-7

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