INVESTIGATING CRITICAL ROUTES: THE POLITICS OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN CAPITALISM (original) (raw)
Related papers
Mathematics education and the juggernaut of capitalism
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2018
This article undertakes an ideological critique of mathematics education from a capitalist perspective. By replacing 'society' with 'education' and 'the figure of the Jew' with 'mathematics' in quotations from philosopher Slavoj Žižek, we characterize mathematics as the symptom of educational ideology. From such substitutions, we get statements like: Education does not exist and Mathematics is its symptom. In order to explore the kernel of truth in these statements, we introduce two concepts: identity-quilted-speech, to specify the so-called certainty of twentieth century mathematics (M20), and qualified-labor-power, to characterize the commodity that results from school production. Through the development of these concepts, we show how M20 actualizes Kant's radical ethics. We indicate the need to consider the mathematics classroom from the sociological perspective of jouissance. We present three instances of the inescapable production of meaning imposed on us by what we call the juggernaut of capitalist society. This inescapable production leaves us no apparent alternative but to either become a devotee of Capital or to follow the path of the Great Refusal: a re-signification of terrorism. Against this dead-end alternative, we suggest ways of decelerating the juggernaut, trying to curb it from within our classrooms.
Toward a Political Economy of Mathematics Education
Why do schools teach the mathematics that they do? In this essay, Houman Harouni asserts that educational institutions offer mathematics standards and curricula with- out providing convincing justifications and that students are tested on content whose purpose neither they nor their teachers clearly understand. He proposes a theoretical framework for understanding the content and pedagogy of school mathematics as a set of practices reflecting sociopolitical values, particularly in relation to labor and citizenship. Beginning with a critical study of the history of mathematics instruction, Harouni traces the origins of modern math education to the early institutions in which mathematics served a clear utilitarian purpose, and in the process he unearths common, unexamined assumptions regarding the place and form of mathematics education in contemporary society.
CRITICAL MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA
CSU, 2017
Public schools in the United States are currently facing the consequences of neoliberal educational implementations. Neoliberalism aims to privatise and redefine public education to satisfy the needs of the labour market; it imposes a standardised and ‘teacher-proof’ curriculum, which is considered by many to reduce the quality of education to meet the goal of improving test scores. On a broad conceptualisation, its influence has replaced the idea of the citizen with that of the consumer. Some research has suggested that this market-driven process strips public education of its potential to help students develop the skills, attitudes, and values needed to become critical citizens. Given this climate, the present research offers a case study. Drawing on a critical participatory action research approach, it investigates how critical mathematics education (CME) responds to the tension between the needs of a neoliberal system and the needs of students to fulfil their potential as citizens and as human beings. The original contribution of this dissertation is that despite obstructive implications of market-driven changes, a practice of CME to promote critical citizenship can be implemented through open-ended projects that resonate with inquiry-based collaborative learning and dialogic pedagogy. This practice necessitates transforming the classroom into a community of mathematics learners to democratise classroom life and create opportunities to promote participatory and social justice–based citizenship. The study also identified two main limitations of CME resulting from: (a) being a counterhegemonic practice enacted within an educational a (neoliberal) system, while simultaneously criticizing that same system; and (b) a lack of adequate learning materials and professional support to enact a CME program.
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2022
In this article, we present a decolonial stance in Mathematics Education, which is not understood as a qualification attributed to particular actions or practices as opposed to others, nor as a tendency that theoretically or methodologically constrains research production, but as a political and epistemic position of permanent transgression and insurgency concerning the patterns of world power established by the myth of Western modernity. From this understanding and towards a political agenda in Mathematics Education, we propose, with no pretensions of totality, a set of situated actions: in Mathematics, in its ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives, problematizing the naturalization of practices and conceptions on the discipline and its teaching, and setting it in a movement of political-epistemic disobedience; in collective memories linked to Mathematics and Mathematics Education, deconstructing Eurocentric narratives which invibilize bodies, knowledges, and ways of being in the world; in Mathematics teachers' education processes, incorporating and acknowledging the protagonism of other subjects, territories, and their knowledges.
Educational Studies in Mathematics, 2018
The intent of the book Sociopolitical Dimensions of Mathematics Education: From the Margin to the Mainstream is to capture, promote, critique, and reflect on the mainstreaming of the sociopolitical dimensions in mathematics education. The editors, Murad Jurdak and Renuka Vithal, state: Bmathematics for all is an illusion that allows the status quo of its systemic failure to remain^(p. 11). From this lens, I came to the title of my book review. It is a juxtaposition between fantasy and reality in the quest for mathematics for all. The book's analysis of the sociopolitical dimensions in mathematics education highlights the challenges and the action necessary to make mathematics for all a reality. First, a deeper understanding of the term mathematics for all in its simplistic aspects of meaning keeps the possibility of attainment at a distance and possible only in an ideal society. Second, the complexity of contemporary society calls for mathematics educators to take action beyond what mathematics is to be learned. For example, mathematics educators could see themselves with power to inform and impact school mathematics education at all levels through social media with authentic suggestions based on research. Therefore, the intricacies of sociopolitical dimensions in mathematics education force us to zoom in and zoom out repeatedly on the research and the decisions that are made for each learner, or groups of learners. The International Conference on Mathematics Education (ICME) meets every four years and provides an update on the current condition of mathematics education. In 2016 (ICME-13), the Topic Study Group (TSG 34), Social and Political Dimension of Mathematics Education was inaugurated. Although I attended and presented at ICME-13, I was not familiar with TSG 34. However, I was familiar with the content of Deborah Ball's plenary session: Uncovering the Special Mathematical Work of Teaching. She along with Bill Barton, and Günter Ziegler, spoke directly about aspects of the sociopolitical in mathematics education.
Critical Mathematics Education for Democracy
SCU, 2018
Drawing on a critical participatory action research approach, this paper investigates how critical mathematics education responds to the tension between the needs of a neoliberal system and the needs of students to fulfil their potential as citizens and as human beings. The original contribution of the research is that despite obstructive implications of market-driven changes, a practice of mathematics education to promote critical citizenship can be implemented through open-ended projects that resonate with inquiry-based collaborative learning and dialogic pedagogy.