Who Can Learn Mathematics?

Abstract

The aim of this text is to discuss, through a case study, the concept of Deficiencialism in a context where a blind student is trying to pursue a mathematics degree, with the following research questions as guidance: Is it possible to define what mathematical contents a blind student can or cannot study? If one answers yes for this question, then I ask: Who defines it? In order to discuss this subject, the paper includes four sections. The first features short episodes created with parts of the interviews I conducted for my master’s research thesis, with some statements highlighted. The discussion of what a blind person can or cannot do or study is the criteria to include these quotes in this text. In the second section, I rewrite some of the ideas that brought me to the concept of Deficiencialism during my PhD research. In the third section, I provide a possible analysis about the domination by the Normal people of the narratives concerning who is Normal and who is Abnormal as well as what an Abnormal person can and/or cannot do or study, analogously the West’s creation of the East that Edward Said wrote about, analysing the interviews using the concept of Deficiencialism. I use the words Normal and Abnormal freely in this text, as a critic, making an analogy with the East and the West on the post-colonial literature. Finally, in the fourth section, I offer some remarks proposing an alternative to produce inclusion-exclusion narratives as a first step towards a more balanced discourse, for example, bringing the narrative from the perspective of the Abnormal, of the student with disability. Not a crystal-clear discourse, it is still mostly grey, but with some more colours and tones of grey involved in the narratives’ construction, not only the Normal ones.