Pedagogic discourse, positioning and emotion : illustrations from school mathematics

Part of : Review of science, mathematics and ICT education ; Vol.1, No.1, 2007, pages 83-105

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83-105
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Abstract:
Our approach to the study of emotion in school mathematics draws on severaltheoretical strands, all of which give a central role to the notion of discourse. Thus,emotions are considered as socially organised and shaped by power relations. We seeemotion as analytically distinct from cognition, but at the same time as inseparable fromit in practice: metaphorically we portray emotion as a charge (of energy) attached toideas or (chains of) signifiers. To develop these ideas, we analyse a verbal text, basedon a video record of a small group of students solving mathematical problems. Thestructural phase of the analysis identifies the positions available to subjects in thisspecific field; here we isolate five available pairs of student-positions, which can beinter-related using Bernstein’s (2000) sociological approach to pedagogic discourse.The textual phase examines the use of language and other signs in interaction anddescribes the positionings taken up by particular pupils. Developing the textual phase,we then focus on indicators of emotion, drawing especially on psychoanalytic insights.Here we find indications of a range of emotions such as excitement and anxiety thatmay be linked to participants’ positionings. We conclude by considering sometheoretical, methodological and policy implications of our approach.
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Keywords:
affect, defenses, discourse, displacement, emotion, metaphor, pedagogic discourse, practice
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