A socio-critical analysis of students’ perceptions of mathematics

Abstract

Rather than studying students’ perceptions of mathematics from a beliefs or identity framework with the purpose of improving the learning of mathematics, this study develops a Foucauldian framework, which allows a socio-critical interpretation of students’ perceptions, which are considered an indicator for their developing subjectivities. This allows me to discuss how diverging devotions to mathematics, suffering from mathematics as well as seeing personal relevance and challenges in mathematics connects to the institutional and societal functionality of mathematics education. Thereby, I also present data obtained in questionnaires from German ninth grade students.