📚 Save Big on Books! Enjoy 10% off when you spend £100 and 20% off when you spend £200 (or the equivalent in supported currencies)—discount automatically applied when you add books to your cart before checkout! 🛒

Copyright

Brian Greer; Ole Skovsmose; David Kollosche;

Published On

2024-12-11

Page Range

pp. 1–22

Language

  • English

Print Length

22 pages

1. Beginning

Chapter of: Breaking Images: Iconoclastic Analyses of Mathematics and its Education(pp. 1–22)
The contributions in this book focus on critically analysing the relationship between mathematics as a discipline and mathematics as a school subject. The discontents of school mathematics are universally acknowledged and include questions such as: Why do so many people, however intelligent and successful, have feelings of inadequacy and alienation towards the subject? Why does mathematics education in school not seem to improve despite all the effort put into it? Our collective attempt to address such questions through radical rethinking begins by arguing that it is more productive to speak in terms of doing mathematics, in a variety of senses, rather than using words that imply that mathematics exists as some kind of entity. In particular, we reject the notion of mathematics being independent of human agency. Such a reformulation is in line with recent developments in mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics that problematise the quest for a definitive and timeless definition of mathematics. Related developments in history of mathematics, anthropology, and related fields make it imperative to acknowledge historical, cultural, social, ethical, and political – in short, human – dimensions of mathematics and mathematics education. Multiple important themes that are generated by this perspective are summarised.

Contributors

Brian Greer

(author)
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5230-1904

Brian Greer began his research on mathematical cognition, before shifting his interest to school mathematics. That evolved to reflect a characterization of mathematics as a human activity embedded in historical, cultural, social and political – in short, human – contexts.

Ole Skovsmose

(author)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1528-796X

Ole Skovsmose’s research has addressed landscapes of investigation, dialogue, students’ foreground, inclusive mathematics education, pedagogical imagination, mathematics in action, philosophy of mathematics education, and philosophy of mathematics. He has been professor at Aalborg University, Denmark, but is now associated to State University of São Paulo, Brazil. In 2024, he was awarded the Hans Freudenthal medal.

David Kollosche

(author)
Full Professor for Mathematics Education Research at University of Klagenfurt
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1055-2418

David Kollosche is a full professor for mathematics education research at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. He teaches mathematics, history of mathematics, philosophy of mathematics, and mathematics education to prospective secondary school teachers. His research focusses on theoretical foundations of mathematics education, the epistemology of mathematics, the sociology of mathematics education, and students’ perspectives on mathematics education.