School mathematical texts : a teacher's interpretative enquiry

Wing, Anthony (1989) School mathematical texts : a teacher's interpretative enquiry. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

The enquiry is an interpreting of the phenomenon of school mathematical texts consequent upon, in the first instance, certain difficulties I experienced in school-teaching with such texts. It was an attempt to reach a developed interpretative understanding of school mathematical texts in order that particular problems I experienced teaching with and about such texts be resolved. Initially I enquired into the experience of reading school mathematical texts and developed an understanding of reading based upon studies from semiotics (in particular the work of Ferdinand de Saussure), and on the work of Frank Smith. With such a developed understanding I produced readings of several instances of school mathematical text and in the light of these readings particular essential features of school mathematical texts emerged. My enquiring proceeded with an interpretation of school mathematical texts as objects becoming within the practices of school mathematics teaching, which was based upon both my own experiences with such texts and conversations with forty eight primary school children concerning theirs. With respect to understanding my own experiences with these texts I drew particularly upon the work of Umberto Eco and of David Olson, and with respect to understanding both my own and children's experiences I drew especially upon Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. Finally I addressed the changing nature of the phenomenon of school mathematical texts. My developed understanding of school mathematical texts includes the view that such texts necessarily become authoritarian in character when written so as to preserve, impart, or emphasise a `Textual' mathematics.

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