Pain, pleasure and power: selecting and assessing defended subjects (original) (raw)

Abstract

In this chapter we make sense of our personal mathematical journeys as accounts of defended subjects, while also exploring the role of discourses in our defences. Following Wendy Hollway and Tony Jefferson (2000, p.21), we argue that “subjects invest in discourses when these offer positions which provide protections against anxiety and therefore supports to identity”. Thus, we aim to understand our accounts as both psychic and social, without reducing one to the other. We begin by outlining the idea of the defended subject before turning to Jacques Nimier’s application of this to mathematics. Next we use these ideas to analyse the extracts above. We argue that a psychoanalytic approach can give us new understandings of the pain, power and pleasure of selection and assessment that provide a critique of current practices. Reference: Black, L., Mendick, Rodd, M. and Solomon, Y. with Brown, M. (2009) Pain, pleasure and power: selecting and assessing defended subjects. In: L. Black, H. Mendick and Y. Solomon (eds), Mathematical Relationships in Education: Identities and Participation.

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