Table Of ContentOpening the Research Text
Mathematics Education Library
VOLUME 46
Managing Editor
A.J. Bishop, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Editorial Board
J.P. Becker, Illinois, U.S.A.
C. Keitel, Berlin, Germany
F. Leung, Hong Kong, China
G. Leder, Melbourne, Australia
D. Pimm, Edmonton, Canada
A. Sfard, Haifa, Israel
O. Skovsmose, Aalborg, Denmark
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Elizabeth de Freitas
Kathleen Nolan
(Editors)
Opening the Research Text
Critical Insights and In(ter)ventions into
Mathematics Education
Elizabeth de Freitas Kathleen Nolan
Adelphia University University of Regina
Garden City, NY Regina, Saskatewan
USA Canada
University of Prince Edward Island [email protected]
Charlottetown, PEI
Canada
[email protected]
Series Editor:
Alan Bishop
Monash University
Melboure 3800
Australia
[email protected]
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007936206
ISBN -13: 978-0-387-75463-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-0-387-75464-2
Printed on acid-free paper.
(cid:164) 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the
written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC., 233 Spring
Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or
scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known
or hereafter developed is forbidden.
The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even
if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether
or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
springer.com
Contents
Contributing Authors ix
CHAPTER 1
Foreword to the research text: Mathematics education under cross-
examination 1
Kathleen Nolan and Elizabeth de Freitas
CHAPTER 2
Best evidence research redefined in mathematics education 13
Margaret Walshaw
Psychosocial processes in mathematics and mathematics
education 27
Tony Brown
The teacher as midwife: What can mathematics education
research learn from obstetrics? 33
Nathalie Sinclair
CHAPTER 3
Mathematics and mathematics education—deconstructing
the math wars 41
Marcelo Batarce & Stephen Lerman
vi Contents
Pinning a problem in mathematics education 57
Una Hanley
Writing as the intrusive third space 63
Elizabeth de Freitas
CHAPTER 4
Opening the mathematics text: What does it say? 65
Paul Ernest
Huh?! 81
Brent Davis
Opening up the text—starting in the middle 87
Tara Stuckless
Timeless pleasure 93
Elizabeth de Freitas
CHAPTER 5
Comforting narratives of compliance: Psychoanalytic perspectives
on new teacher responses to mathematics policy reform 97
Tony Brown
The promises of disrupting comforting narratives
of compliance 111
Kathleen Nolan, Brent Eidsness, Shana Graham, Kathy
Lawless, Devona Putland and Tara Stuckless
The (com)promises of disrupting comforting narratives
of compliance 123
Kathleen Nolan
CHAPTER 6
Power distribution in the network of mathematics education practices 131
Ole Ravn Christensen, Diana Stentoft and Paola Valero
A landscape of power distribution 147
Ole Ravn Christensen, Diana Stentoft and Paola Valero
Contents vii
Living the landscape with/in a thrice-told tale 155
Kathleen Nolan
CHAPTER 7
Mathematics education in a knowledge market: Developing
functional and critical competencies 159
Ole Skovsmose
More than mark(et) driven? Scenes from a continuing
conversation 175
Kathleen Nolan and Paul Muir
Living mathematically: A poet’s response 183
Carl Leggo
CHAPTER 8
Building political relationships with students: An aspect of social
justice pedagogy 189
Eric Gutstein
Fear of the political 205
Elizabeth de Freitas
Critiquing knowledge, challenging oppression
and standing in solidarity in teacher education 209
Carol Fulton
A life for Aprile: Social justice as a search of/for the soul 213
Dalene M. Swanson
CHAPTER 9
Afterword: Bootleg mathematics 221
Peter Appelbaum
Subject Index 249
Contributing Authors
Peter Appelbaum is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Mathematics
Education and Curriculum Studies Programs at Arcadia University in Phila-
delphia, USA. At Arcadia he also directs the Strangely Familiar Music
Group and is Director-at-Large of General Education. He is the author of
Embracing Mathematics: On Becoming a Teacher and Changing with
Mathematics; Children’s Books for Grown-Up Teachers: Reading and Writ-
ing Curriculum Theory; and Popular Culture, Educational Discourse and
Mathematics.
Marcelo Batarce is a lecturer at Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso do
Sul, Brazil. His first degree was in mathematics teacher education and, for
the last two years, he has been studying Derrida as a fundamental aspect of
his PhD at London South Bank University under Steve Lerman's supervi-
sion. Marcelo has always been interested in philosophical foundations of
mathematics education and its relation to mathematics. His chapter in this
book, co-authored with Steve Lerman, identifies the main directions of his
current research.
Tony Brown (Bristol) is Director of ESCalate, the National Subject Centre
for the Promotion of Teaching and Learning in Education, based at the Uni-
versity of Bristol. He has an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies from the Univer-
sity of Sheffield and a Ph.D. from the Open University. His doctoral thesis,
entitled, Transforming the Self (2000), uses a psychodynamic approach to
study student teachers' perceptions of identity. Prior to his position at the
University of Bristol, Tony worked as a secondary school physics teacher, as
x Contributing Authors
a curriculum advisor and leader for mathematics, and as a programme leader
for primary teacher education courses.
Tony Brown (MMU) is Professor of Mathematics Education and Head of
the Research Student Programme at Manchester Metropolitan University,
UK. His research work has focused primarily on issues relating to language
in educational contexts. He has numerous international publications in the
fields of mathematics education and teacher education. His books include:
New Teacher Identity and Regulative Government: the discursive formation
of primary mathematics teacher education (with McNamara), published by
Springer; Mathematics Education and Language: interpreting hermeneutics
and post structuralism in Kluwer’s Mathematics Education Library Series;
Regulative Discourses in Education: A Lacanian perspective (with Atkinson &
England) and Action Research and Postmodernism (with Jones).
Ole Ravn Christensen has a Ph.D in science and mathematics education
and is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education, Learning and
Philosophy at Aalborg University, Denmark. His initial background is in
mathematics and philosophy. Since 2000, he has been conducting research in
the area of the philosophy of mathematics and science education, with par-
ticular emphasis on the social and historical dimensions of mathematics
teaching and learning, and of science education. His research integrates stud-
ies on learning theories, philosophy of science and the practice of education
and educational planning. He has published several papers in books and
journals.
Brent Davis is Professor and David Robitaille Chair in Mathematics, Sci-
ence, and Technology Education in the Faculty of Education at the Univer-
sity of British Columbia. His research is developed around the educational
relevance of recent developments in the cognitive and complexity sciences.
He is a founding co-editor of Complicity: An International Journal of Com-
plexity and Education and current editor of For the Learning of Mathemat-
ics. He has published books and articles in the areas of mathematics learning
and teaching, curriculum theory, teacher education, epistemology, and action
research.
Elizabeth de Freitas is an Associate Professor at Adelphi University. Her
research interests are mathematics education, cultural studies, teacher iden-
tity, and discourse analysis. She has published articles in Educational Stud-
ies in Mathematics, the International Journal of Education and the Arts,
Teaching Education, Language and Literacy, The Journal of the Canadian
