Abstract
Social and political turns in mathematics education research have brought into the field postmodern theorisations that researchers have been using to dismantle traditional philosophies of mathematics, to posit mathematics in the sociocultural terrain, and to spell out the role mathematics has in school exclusion. Sociopolitical perspectives constitute a privileged field of research to address the influence of economy on mathematical achievement. However, instead of investigating the role of economy in students’ achievement, sociopolitical studies have been contributing to a disavowal of the economic dimension of school mathematics. This paper synthesises a set of investigations carried out by the author in the last 5 years endeavouring to posit mathematics education in the political and economic spectrum of our time. It takes advantage of the contemporary combination of Hegel’s dialectics, Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marx’s critique of political economy, carried out by Slavoj Žižek, to develop a critique of the way research within the so-called ‘sociopolitical turn’ deals with the issue of equity; and marks out the contours of mathematics education’s ideological belonging.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For example, in the very recent JRME Special Issue on equity none of the articles deals with the socioeconomic, class or other categories susceptible of economic analysis. As surveyed by Lubienski and Bowen (2000), the lack of studies dealing with social class is a common feature not only of the sociopolitical turn but also of mathematics education, and educational sciences, more generally.
This is obviously also the case with the vast majority of mathematics education research (which disavows not only the economy but also shows a historical tendency to disavow the social and cultural dimensions, by being centred in a psychological approach). As Valero and I explored (Pais and Valero 2012), even socioculturalism and its use of Marxist psychological theories such as the ones of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev, end up focusing on the cultural and historical dimension of learning, thus completely obliterating its economic dimension. Nonetheless my criticism concerns also research that, although seeking to go beyond a ‘didactical’, ‘psychological’ and ‘sociocultural’ perspective of school mathematics, by means of emphasising ‘political’ issues, refrains from analysing the relation between school mathematics and the economy.
A slogan propagated in the last decades by national policy and curricula (e.g. the UK’s national curriculum, see http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary), professional organisations (e.g. NCTM 2000) and researchers (e.g. Presmeg 2010) alike.
When Lacan (seminar of 23 April 1974, in Le séminaire, Livre XXI: Les non-dupes errant, unpublished, cited in Fink 1995, p. 142) says that “[t]he real is what does not depend on my idea of it”, he is pointing to the dimension of human subjectivity that is independent of our knowledge of it—the Freudian unconscious. Such a conceptualisation is what allows Žižek to transpose the real qua psychic dimension to social analysis. His argument is that we may very well know that our economic system is unfair, that schools are subjected to economic pressures, but nonetheless its functioning is real, that is, it does not depend on our knowledge of it. The same point is made by Lundin (2012) apropos of mathematics education: “[m]easurements, grades, and examinations have consequences only inside the system in which they play a central role (…) it should be as obvious that opinions, thoughts and feelings towards this system do not affect its proper functioning” (p. 83).
This is not to say that all these aspects are not important for equity and social justice. They are important, as various studies have been showing, but it is only through assessment that they become actualised as excluding factors.
Which, notwithstanding their use of so-called poststructuralist theories, particularly Lacanian psychoanalysis, are not regarded as part of the sociopolitical turn.
But also “politics of recognition” or “identity politics”. See Butler et al. (2000) for an account of the terms in which the relation between “politics” and “Political” is carried within contemporary theory.
Hysterical because it is impossible to satisfy.
References
Althusser, L. (1994). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation). In S. Žižek (Ed.), Mapping ideology (pp. 100–140). New York and London: Verso.
Atweh, B., Graven, M., Secada, W., & Valero, P. (Eds.). (2010). Mapping equity and quality in mathematics education. New York: Springer.
Baldino, R., & Cabral, T. (2005). Situations of psychological cognitive no-growth. In H. L. Chick & J. L. Vincent (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME29) (Vol. 2, pp. 105–112). Melbourne, Australia: PME.
Baldino, R., & Cabral, T. (2006). Inclusion and diversity from Hegel-Lacan point of view: do we desire our desire for change? International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 4, 19–43.
Baldino, R., & Cabral, T. (2008). I love maths anxiety. In T. Brown (Ed.), The psychology of mathematics education: a psychoanalytical displacement. Sense: Rotterdam.
Baldino, R., & Cabral, T. (2013). The productivity of students’ schoolwork: an exercise on Marxist rigour. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 11(4), 1–15.
Bishop, A., & Forgasz, H. (2007). Issues in access and equity in mathematics education. In F. Lester (Ed.), Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 1145–1168). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Brown, W. (1995). States of injury. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Brown, T. (2011). Mathematics education and subjectivity: Cultures and cultural renewal. Dordrecht: Springer.
Butler, J., Laclau, E., & Žižek, S. (2000). Contingency, hegemony, universality. London: Verso.
D’Ambrosio, U. (2003). Educação matemática: Da teoria à prática [Ethnomathematics: From theory to practice]. Campinas: Papirus.
Eagleton, T. (2001). Ideology, discourse, and the problems of ‘post-Marxism’. In S. Malpas (Ed.), Postmodern debates (pp. 79–92). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
Engels, F. (1968). Letter to Franz Mehring, London, July 14, 1893. Marx–Engels Correspondence 1893. International Publishers. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm. Accessed 21 July 2014.
Ernest, P. (2004). Postmodernism and the subject of mathematics. In M. Walshaw (Ed.), Mathematics education within the postmodern (pp. 15–33). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Fink, B. (1995). The Lacanian subject: Between language and jouissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gates, P., & Zevenbergen, R. (2009). Foregrounding social justice in mathematics teacher education. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 12, 161–170.
Gerofsky, S. (2010). The impossibility of ‘real-life’ word problems (according to Bakhtin, Lacan, Žižek and Baudrillard). Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31(1), 61–73.
Gutiérrez, R. (2013). The sociopolitical turn in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 44(1), 37–68.
Gutstein, E. (2003). Teaching and learning mathematics for social justice in an Urban, Latino School. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23(1), 37–73.
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Jorgensen, R., Gates, P., & Roper, V. (2013). Structural exclusion through school mathematics: using Bourdieu to understand mathematics as a social practice. Educational Studies in Mathematics,. doi:10.1007/s10649-013-9468-4.
Kanes, C., Morgan, C., & Tsatsaroni, A. (2014). The mathematics PISA regime: knowledge structures and practices of the self. Educational Studies in Mathematics.
Knijnik, G. (2007). Mathematics education and the Brazilian landless movement: three different mathematics in the context of the struggle for social justice. Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal (Online), 21.
Lacan, J. (2007). The other side of psychoanalysis: The seminar of Jacques Lacan book XVII [1991] (1st ed.). New York: Norton.
Lerman, S. (2000). The social turn in mathematics education research. In J. Boaler (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 19–44). Westport, CT: Ablex.
Lubienski, S. (2003). Celebrating diversity and denying disparities: a critical assessment. Educational Researcher, 32(8), 30–38.
Lubienski, S. T., & Bowen, A. (2000). Who’s counting? A survey of mathematics education research 1982–1998. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31, 626–633.
Lubienski, S., & Gutiérrez, R. (2008). Bridging the gaps in perspectives on equity in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 365–371.
Lundin, S. (2012). Hating school, loving mathematics: on the ideological function of critique and reform in mathematics education. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80(1), 73–85.
Martin, D. B. (2011). What does quality mean in the context of white institutional space? In B. Atweh, M. Graven, W. Secada, & P. Valero (Eds.), Mapping equity and quality in mathematics education (pp. 437–450). New York: Springer.
Mattos, A., & Batarce, M. (2010). Mathematics education and democracy. ZDM-The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 42(2–3), 281–289.
Morgan, C. (2013). Understanding practices in mathematics education: structure and text. Educational Studies in Mathematics,. doi:10.1007/s10649-013-9482-6.
NCTM. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.
Pais, A. (2012). A critical approach to equity in mathematics education. In O. Skovsmose & B. Greer (Eds.), Opening the cage: critique and politics of mathematics education (pp. 49–91). Rotterdam: Sense.
Pais, A. (2013). An ideology critique of the use-value of mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 84(1), 15–34.
Pais, A., Fernandes, E., Matos, J., & Alves, A. (2012). Recovering the meaning of “critique” in critical mathematics education. For the Learning of Mathematics, 32(1), 29–34.
Pais, A., & Valero, P. (2011). Beyond disavowing the politics of equity and quality in mathematics education. In B. Atweh, M. Graven, W. Secada, & P. Valero (Eds.), Mapping equity and quality in mathematics education (pp. 35–48). New York: Springer.
Pais, A., & Valero, P. (2012). Researching research: mathematics education in the political. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80(1–2), 9–24.
Popkewitz, T. S. (2004). The alchemy of the mathematics curriculum: inscriptions and the fabrication of the child. American Educational Research Journal, 41(1), 3–34.
Presmeg, N. (2010). Editorial. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 73(1), 1–2.
Presmeg, N., & Radford, L. (2008). On semiotics and subjectivity: a response to Tony Brown’s “signifying ‘students’, ‘teachers’, and ‘mathematics’: a reading of a special issue”. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 69, 265–276.
Radford, L. (2011). Education and the illusions of emancipation. Educational Studies in Mathematics,. doi:10.1007/s10649-011-9380-8.
Reyes, L., & Stanic, G. (1988). Race, sex, socioeconomic status, and mathematics. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 19(1), 26–43.
Secada, W., Fennema, E., & Byrd, L. (Eds.). (1995). New directions for equity in mathematics education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seidman, S. (1994). Introduction. In S. Seidman (Ed.), The postmodern turn: new perspectives on social theory (pp. 1–26). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skovsmose, O., & Borba, M. (2004). Research methodology and critical mathematics education. In P. Valero & R. Zevenbergen (Eds.), Researching the socio-political dimensions of mathematics education: Issues of power in theory and methodology (pp. 207–226). Boston: Kluwer.
Sriraman, B., & English, L. (2010). Surveying theories and philosophies of mathematics education. In B. Sriraman & L. English (Eds.), Theories of mathematics education: Seeking new frontiers. Heidelberg: Springer.
Sriraman, B., Roscoe, M., & English, L. (2010). Politicizing mathematics education: Has politics gone too far? Or not far enough? In B. Sriraman & L. English (Eds.), Theories of mathematics education: Seeking new frontiers (pp. 621–638). Heidelberg: Springer.
Straehler-Pohl, H., & Pais, A. (2014). Learning to fail and learning from failure: Ideology at work in a mathematics classroom. Pedagogy, Culture and Society,. doi:10.1080/14681366.2013.877207.
Tsatsaroni, A., & Evans, J. (2013). Adult numeracy and the totally pedagogised society: PIAAC and other international surveys in the context of global educational policy on lifelong learning. Educational Studies in Mathematics,. doi:10.1007/s10649-013-9470-x.
Valero, P. (2004). Socio-political perspectives on mathematics education. In P. Valero & R. Zevenbergen (Eds.), Researching the socio-political dimensions of mathematics education: issues of power in theory and methodology (pp. 5–24). Boston: Kluwer.
Valero, P. (2007). A socio-political look at equity in the school organization of mathematics education. ZDM-The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 39(3), 225–233.
Valero, P., & Stentoft, D. (2010). The ‘post’ move of critical mathematics education. In H. Alrø, O. Ravn, & P. Valero (Eds.), Critical mathematics education: past, present and future (pp. 183–196). Rotterdam: Sense.
Vinner, S. (1997). From intuition to inhibition—mathematics education and other endangered species. In E. Pehkonen (Ed.), Proceedings of the 21st conference of the International Group for Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, pp. 63–78). Helsinki: Lahti Research and Training Centre, University of Helsinki.
Žižek, S. (1993). Tarrying with the negative. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Žižek, S. (1994). The spectre of ideology. In S. Žižek (Ed.), Mapping ideology (pp. 1–33). London and New York: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2008a). The sublime object of ideology [1989] (1st ed.). London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2008b). The plague of fantasies [1997] (1st ed.). London: Verso.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pais, A. Economy: the absent centre of mathematics education. ZDM Mathematics Education 46, 1085–1093 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-014-0625-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-014-0625-8