Rethinking Affect in Education From a Societal-Historical Perspective: The Case of Mathematics Anxiety

Abstract

Affect tends to be treated in educational research as a factor external to, but influencing, cognition. This is so even in those approaches that ally themselves with cultural-historical approaches that denounce the separation of affect and intellect. In this study, the authors use the case of mathematics anxiety to exhibit and exemplify the ways in which affect tends to be theorized. The authors then present the radical alternative that L. S. Vygotsky initially proposed and that was further developed by scholars that advanced his idea of unit analysis. There are several consequences for the measurement of affect and its relations to other dimensions of activity.

Notes

¹ Vygotskij (2005) himself shifted back and forth between the two adjectives social (social’nyj) and societal (obščestvennyj)—even though he recognized the effect of “class,” “class struggle,” and “class interests.” Leont’ev (1983), and following him Holzkamp (1983), would consistently use the adjective societal, which affords a critique of inequities in society and a starting point for its transformation.