School knowledge, cross-curricularity and teamwork teaching in the Greek primary school: mathematics education as discursive practice

Abstract

Through analysis of exercises offered in mathematics textbooks, this article investigates the discursive practice of cross-curricularity and group work teaching that was advocated in the 2007 reform of mathematics education in Greek primary schools. The conclusion of the research is that the organisation of school knowledge is vertical, and strong classification and strong framing boundaries characterise it. This structure prevents any attempt to take a cross-curricular approach to knowledge management, thus sedating simultaneously any group work method of teaching, as advocated in the discourse. Furthermore, the research supports that the high centralisation of the Greek educational system, with one textbook used exclusively to teach subjects across the country, suffocates any effort to open the classification and framing of school knowledge and de-skills teachers.

Keywords:

• classification
• framing
• integrated and collection code curriculum
• mathematics education
• primary school

Notes

1. Textbook creation by the PI and textbook printing by the Organization for the Publication of Schoolbooks (OEDB) originated in Greece in 1938 during the dictatorship of Metaxa, and has dominated ever since.

2. Students in the first grade who enter primary schools at the age of six, for example, have 14 textbooks for different subject areas.

3. It is descriptive that the previous reform that produced new textbooks was during 1982–1985; the previous to that (if we do not include the books that were made during the junta period) was 1913.

4. Napoleon supposedly introduced this system in France. As the myth goes, it ‘made him happy every day’ because he knew what was being taught across the country. As in Greece, this kind of centralisation and control of school content is an authoritarian perspective on education, since central power determines the knowledge.

5. The geography of the country varies dramatically, from islands to villages in the mountains. Half of the population lives in the capital, Athens.

6. Although due to the economic crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, this percentage seems to be declining in Greece.

7. The combined total indicates that 343 (9.1%) exercises are cross-curricular (individual and group) and 524 (14.1%) exercises involve group work (monothematic or cross-curricular).