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A Foucauldian Analysis of Representations of Mathematicians in Lower Secondary Mexican Mathematics Textbooks

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Abstract

We report on a study focused on identifying how the notion of “the mathematician” is constructed in lower secondary Mexican mathematics textbooks. To conduct the study, we adopted a Foucauldian approach that allows us to identify the way in which the notion of the mathematician is constructed but also to delineate the possible effects that such construction may have on students’ subjectivities. Results show that the representations of mathematicians that most frequently appear in these textbooks are males, mainly Europeans, who lived in ancient times. The representations of female mathematicians are almost nil. We conceptualize the representations of mathematicians contained in these mathematics textbooks as part of a discourse that creates realities and constructs subjectivities, and suggest a theoretical explanation of the mechanisms that allow these representations to circulate and to be perpetuated.

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Notes

  1. To determine which textbooks were bestsellers at the lower secondary level in Mexico, we turned to the Catalogue of Free Textbooks which is a report published in 2015 by the Ministry of Education of Mexico (see http://www.conaliteg.gob.mx/images/stories/libros/2015-07-21_catalogo_libros_texto_gratuitos_2015.pdf).

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank the anonymous reviewers who, through the reviewing process of this paper, helped us to develop our understanding of Foucauldian discourse analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Matemática Educativa, CICATA Legaria, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Calzada Legaria No. 694, Col. Irrigación, Del. Miguel Hidalgo, C.P. 11500, Mexico City, Mexico

    Mario Sánchez Aguilar

  2. DIE-CINVESTAV, Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Tenorios 235, Coapa, Granjas Coapa, Mexico City, C.P. 14330, Mexico

    Apolo Castaneda

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  1. Mario Sánchez Aguilar
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  2. Apolo Castaneda
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Correspondence to Mario Sánchez Aguilar.

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The thing with dominant narratives is they are everywhere, infecting us all — Piper, 2017

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Sánchez Aguilar, M., Castaneda, A. A Foucauldian Analysis of Representations of Mathematicians in Lower Secondary Mexican Mathematics Textbooks. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 18, 753–770 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-09986-z

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