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A Socio-critical Analysis of Students’ Perceptions of Mathematics

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The Disorder of Mathematics Education

Abstract

Rather than studying students’ perceptions of mathematics from a beliefs or identity framework with the purpose of improving the learning of mathematics, this study develops a Foucauldian framework, which allows a socio-critical interpretation of students’ perceptions, which are considered an indicator for their developing subjectivities. This allows me to discuss how diverging devotions to mathematics, suffering from mathematics as well as seeing personal relevance and challenges in mathematics connects to the institutional and societal functionality of mathematics education. Thereby, I also present data obtained in questionnaires from German ninth grade students.

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Acknowledgments

This study was realised with the help of the students of the master seminar on “Student Perceptions of Mathematics” at the Universität Potsdam, Germany , in 2014. I am very grateful for their support in collecting the data and gathering ideas for analysis and interpretation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    David Kollosche

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  1. David Kollosche
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Correspondence to David Kollosche .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Hauke Straehler-Pohl

  2. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Nina Bohlmann

  3. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Alexandre Pais

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Kollosche, D. (2017). A Socio-critical Analysis of Students’ Perceptions of Mathematics. In: Straehler-Pohl, H., Bohlmann, N., Pais, A. (eds) The Disorder of Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34006-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34006-7_11

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-34005-0

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