The Culture of the Mathematics Classroom

An examination of the mathematics classroom as a social process.

Falk Seeger (Edited by), Jörg Voigt (Edited by), Ute Waschescio (Edited by)

9780521577984, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 August 1998

416 pages, 43 b/w illus. 14 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.57 kg

"...the volume does an excellent job of providing the reader with a rich array of classroom examples that are interpreted using theoretically grounded analyses of teaching-learning processes." APA Review of Books

The Culture of the Mathematics Classroom is becoming an increasingly salient topic of discussion in mathematics education. Studying and changing what happens in the classroom allows researchers and educators to recognize the social character of mathematical pedagogy and the relationship between the classroom and culture at large. The volume is divided into three sections, reporting findings gained both in research and in practice. The first presents several attempts to change classroom culture by focusing on the education of mathematics teachers and on teacher-researcher collaboration. The second section shifts to the interactive processes of the mathematics classroom and to the communal nature of learning. The third section discusses the means of constructing, filtering, and establishing mathematical knowledge that are characteristic of the classroom culture. As an examination of the social nature of mathematical teaching and learning, the volume should appeal both to educational psychologists and to cultural and social anthropologists and sociologists. The editors have compiled a volume that explores not only the acquisition of mathematical knowledge but the communal character of such knowledge as well.

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction Falk Seeger, Jörg Voigt and Ute Waschescio
Part I. Changing Classroom Culture: 1. Joint activity in the mathematics classrooms: a Vygotskian perspective Maria G. Bartolini Bussi
2. Evolution of classroom culture in mathematics, teacher education and reflection on action Nadine Bednarz
3. Reorganizing the motivational sphere of classroom culture: an activity-theoretical analysis of planning in a teacher team Yrjö Engeström
4. The practice of teaching mathematics: experimental conditions of change Lisa Hefendehl-Hebeker
Part II. Classroom Processes: 5. Reasoning processes and the quality of reasoning Albrecht Abele
6. A constructivist perspective on the culture of the mathematics classroom Paul Cobb and Erna Yackel
7. The culture of the mathematics classroom: negotiating the mathematical meaning of empirical phenomena Jörg Voigt
8. The missing link: social and cultural aspects in social constructivist theories Ute Waschescio
Part III. Epistemology and Classroom Culture: 9. The culture of the mathematics classroom and the relations between personal and public knowledge: an epistemological perspective Paul Ernest
10. Problems of transfer of classroom mathematical knowledge to practical situations Jeff Evans
11. Cultural perspectives on mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning Stephen Lerman
12. Representations in the mathematics classroom: reflections and constructions Falk Seeger
13. Mathematical understanding in classroom interaction: the interrelation of social and epistemological constraints Heinz Steinbring
Part IV. Outlook: 14. About the notion of culture in mathematics education Heinrich Bauersfeld
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC]