Re/thinking mathematics for social justice: a transactional approach

ABSTRACT

There is a well-established area of work in mathematics education focusing on mathematics for social justice. Much of the work, however, is concerned with individual students’ understanding the world symbolically – as evident in the notions of reading and writing the world using mathematics – while failing to address a transformative agenda that seeks to make a positive difference in a once-occurrent world that we inhabit together with others as part of our once-occurrent lives. In this conceptual essay, we describe and exemplify a transactional approach that inherently is a practical approach. In the transactional approach, the individual is not merely agent but importantly subject to and constituted by social processes that transform the world including the self.

KEYWORDS:

• Transaction
• practical cognition
• theoretical cognition
• distributive justice
• social justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Coliform bacteria are indicators of fecal matters present in the medium, here water.

2. Distributive justice is concerned with socially just participation in use, access to, and allocation of goods (here water).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wolff-Michael Roth

Wolff-Michael Roth is Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. His research is dedicated to the investigation of knowing and learning across the lifespan, in formal educational, leisure, and workplace settings. Hi most recent books include Transactional Psychology of Education: Toward a Strong Version of the Social (Springer, 2019) and Dwelling, Building, Thinking: A Post-Constructivist Perspective on Education, Learning, and Development (Brill, 2018).

Margaret Walshaw

Margaret Walshaw is Professor Emerita at Massey University. Her specific research area of interest is in the development of theory to explain structures and processes in mathematics education and to understand effective and equitable practices in the field. Her work on identity formation, reflective practice, and the history of curriculum development has offered practical tools for transforming practices.