Why maths has baggage (and how some people avoid it)

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• David Pomeroy, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
• Tuesday 20 November 2012, 13:00-14:00
• Room 2S5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ting Ding.

All welcome.

Many of us view mathematicians as “boring, obsessed with the irrelevant, socially incompetent, male and unsuccessfully heterosexual” (Mendick, 2005). Why has mathematics picked up this kind of discursive ‘baggage’, and how does this facilitate or impede students’ engagement with mathematics in schools?

This seminar will explore how we perceive mathematics, how we experience learning mathematics emotionally, and what this has to do with social justice. I will report on findings from my MPhil, an interview-based study of high-achieving students, and outline plans for my PhD, a sociological study of mathematics education in New Zealand. You should emerge from this seminar with a greater understanding of how inequality plays out in the mathematics classroom, a process with resonances in many other areas of education.

This talk is part of the FERSA Lunchtime Sessions series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Faculty of Education Seminars
• FERSA - All Events
• FERSA Lunchtime Sessions
• Room 2S5, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.