Relationships between teachers’ practices and learners’ mathematical identities

ABSTRACT

The field of mathematics education has seen an increase in research focused on the concept of identity, with many researchers focusing on the role of teacher pedagogies in shaping learners’ identities and their participation in and engagement with mathematics. In this paper, the actual and narrated practices of two teachers, which incorporate teachers’ pedagogical approaches and social relationships with learners, are analysed in relation to how they provided opportunities for the construction of learner identities. The paper draws on data that were collected over two years in the form of videotaped lessons, field notes and audiotaped semi-structured interviews with teachers and learners. Data were analysed using qualitative data analysis techniques. The analysis suggests a relationship between the teachers’ actual and narrated practices, with the teachers’ practices influencing the kinds of identities constructed by learners in their classrooms, in terms of learners’ enjoyment of learning mathematics and their willingness to participate in and become fully fledged members of their classroom community.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers’ actual practices
• teachers’ narrated practices
• learners’ mathematical identities
• pedagogical approaches
• social relationships

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Karin Brodie for all her help in the writing up of this article. I would also like to thank Professor David Wagner for all his informative feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. I acknowledge all who supported this study, including learner participants, parents/guardians, teachers, and the school principal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 By narratives of teacher practice, I mean stories of teacher practices. Narratives of practice should not be confused with narratives of identity, which are two separate concepts. Narratives of identity are defined later in the paper.

2 According to Darragh (2016), the greatest theoretical influence in the field of identity in mathematics education research is Wenger (41%), which is followed by the work of Sfard and Prusak (21%).

3 Most of the learners who participated in the study were male learners. In the larger study, only six female learners participated, as there were few female learners in each of the classrooms.

4 Within the larger sample, there were other learners who did not adopt the social identities offered to them by their teachers.

5 The influence of different social identities being offered by different teachers to the same learner will be explored in another paper.

6 It is also possible that since the learners were selected by their teachers, the teachers may have ensured that the learners selected were not resistant. However, it was not possible for me to select the learners using any other method since the teachers knew the learners, whereas I did not.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the National Research Foundation [UID 105210]. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and not necessarily attributed to the National Research Foundation.