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Unpacking discourses about the transition from school to university mathematics: an intensive reading

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Abstract

This paper has two main goals: first, to analyze current research related with transition to identify the foci being produced and reproduced by research through a literature review and, second, to map the connections between circulating discourses to unfold the discursive network that supports them via an intensive reading. Specifically, we are interested in how social and economic factors, educational background, and cognitive development impact the transition process and the documented potential challenges students may face. In this fashion, the questions that guide the development of the paper are as follows: What are the dominant narratives in mathematics education research about the transition from school to university mathematics? How do dominant narratives entangle particular rationalities to configure a discursive network about the transition from school to university mathematics? As a result, we identify three dominant narratives entangled, which shape a system of reason that regulates what is possible to do, act, and think.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study (a group of 71 papers) are not publicly available due to copyright protection. However, the papers list is available in the supplementary material.

Notes

  1. By this, we do not mean that social and cultural differences have not been problematized at all. Instead, we mean that there are social and cultural differences that have not been problematized yet, therefore “unproblematized differences.”.

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This work was supported by ANID/FONDECYT 11231231.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Matemática, Universidad de Tarapacá, 18 de Septiembre 2222, C.P. 1000000, Arica, Chile

    Alex Montecino

  2. Instituto de Matemáticas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Blanco Viel 596, Cerro Barón, C.P. 2350050, Valparaíso, Chile

    Melissa Andrade-Molina

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Correspondence to Alex Montecino.

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Montecino, A., Andrade-Molina, M. Unpacking discourses about the transition from school to university mathematics: an intensive reading. Educ Stud Math (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10288-z

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