Analysis of interviews with first year undergraduate mathematics students shows that 'not belonging' is a prevalent theme in their accounts of the experience of studying mathematics, even though their choice of degree-level study indicates a belief that they are at least at some level 'good at maths'. Instead, they tend to describe themselves as marginalised: they are aligned with mathematical procedures but do not contribute to them. A perception of oneself as a 'legitimate peripheral participant' -as a novice with the potential to make constructive connections in mathematics -is rare. This paper examines the potentially conflicting communities of practice within which undergraduate students find themselves, and presents a typology of their related learner identities. The analysis shows that undergraduate functionality in the sense of belief in oneself as a learner is not necessarily associated with the identity of novice/apprentice as might be predicted by a community of practice model. On the contrary, students who describe identities of heavily alignment can appear unworried by their lack of participation in mathematics, successful as they are in the more dominant local communities of practice. It is argued that these, together with an institutional culture of entrenched beliefs about ability and ownership of knowledge, determine students' experiences and identities in ways which are noticeably gendered. The implications for teaching in mathematics and in Higher Education more generally are discussed.
Strong stereotypes of surgery deterred students from a surgical career. As a field, surgery must actively engage medical students to encourage participation and dispel negative stereotypes that are damaging recruitment into surgery.
There is little discursive space in which to be both a successful woman and a successful surgeon. Those who combine these roles must either be innovative in refiguring what it means to be a woman or what it means to be a surgeon, or they must author a new space for themselves, a powerful discursive process termed 'world making'.
Context: Figured Worlds is a socio-cultural theory drawing on Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, which has been applied in research into the development of identities of both learners and teachers in the wider education literature. It is now being adopted in medical education.Objective: The objective of this paper is to show what Figured Worlds can offer in medical education. Having explained some of its central tenets, we apply it to an important tension in our field. Application:The assumption that there is a uniform 'good doctor' identity, which must be inculcated into medical students, underlies much of what medical educators do, and what our regulators enforce. While diversity is encouraged when students are selected for medical school, pressure to professionalise students creates a drive towards a standardised professional identity by graduation. Using excerpts from reflective pieces written by two junior medical students, we review the basic concepts of Figured Worlds and demonstrate how it can shed light on the implications of this tension. Taking a Bakhtinian approach to discourse, we show how Adam and Sarah develop their professional identities as they negotiate the multiple overlapping and competing ways of being a doctor which they encounter in the world of medical practice. Each demonstrates agency by 'authoring' a unique identity in the cultural world of medicine, as they appropriate and re-voice the words of others.Discussion: Finally, we consider some important areas in medical education where Figured Worlds might prove to be a useful lens: the negotiation of discourses of gender, sexuality and social class, career choice as identification within specialty-specific cultural worlds, and the influence of hidden and informal curricula on doctor identity.
If mathematics is a male domain, where does this leave women who do mathematics? In a world where there is little or no discursive space in which to be female, women who enter in must do identity work in order to achieve what is often an uneasy presence. This paper builds on recent research which suggests that some undergraduate women are however finding new spaces for belonging in the world of mathematics through critical reflection and collective challenge to dominant discourses. Focussing on an analysis of two women's narratives of their success in mathematics, it explores their multi-voiced accounts of self through the lens of Bakhtin's dialogism. It discusses the scope of reflexivity in creating new identity spaces in refigured worlds.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.