Power relations and the negotiation of meanings in a Community of Practice in the field of Mathematics Education

Abstract

This article aims to identify and analyze power relations in the negotiation of meanings in a Community of Practice, called the “Observatório da Educação Matemática” da Bahia (OEM-BA), formed by academics from the university and teachers of Basic Education, who came together to produce educational math curriculum materials. The research carried out was of a qualitative nature and the data were produced through observations of the activities carried out by OEM-BA. To support the analysis, we used Etienne Wenger’s Social Theory of Learning and Basil Bernstein’s Theory of Codes. By analyzing the data, we identify power relations between academic and non-academic discourses, as well as interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary discourses. This happened when members negotiated meanings relative to teaching and learning content operations with whole numbers and quantities directly and inversely proportional. The results of this research gave visibility to variations in the principles and hierarchies underlying the meeting between academics and scholars.