English Learners' Participation in Mathematical Discussion: Shifting Positionings and Dynamic Identities

Abstract

This study investigated discursive positioning moves that facilitated Latino/a English learners' (ELs) opportunities to take on agentive problem-solving roles in group mathematical discussion. A focus on mechanisms that support students' agentive participation is consistent with our view that recurrent experiences participating and being positioned in particular ways contribute to identity development. Findings suggest several ways that discursive positioning facilitated ELs' agentive participation, including via: (a) explicit statements that validated ELs' reasoning, (b) invitations to share, justify, or clarify thinking that positioned ELs as competent problem solvers, and (c) inviting peers to respond to an EL's idea in ways that positioned the idea as important and/or mathematically justified.

Language as resource: a key notion for understanding the complexity of mathematics learning

“…Such construction inevitably influences the options made available and produced in language. However, empirically driven evidence of learners drawing on and using their languages and meanings to learn mathematics in the immediateness of classroom situations in cultures of official language of instruction (e.g., Setati, 2005;Planas, 2011;Turner et al, 2013) substantiates the possibility of transforming the very conditions of recognition of meaning as it goes along. Overall, the realization of language as resource for the creation of mathematical meaning requires attention to the context of culture and to the immediate situation in which learners interact with the language of mathematics and the language of instruction.…”

“…Since the 1990s and in the midst of premises regarding conceptions of language in the field, research that questions the perspective of language as problem has remained visible in several works and ways (e.g., Barwell, Chapsam, Nkambule, & Phakeng, 2016;Ellerton & Clarkson, 1996;Planas & Setati, 2009;Turner, Domínguez, Maldonado, & Empson, 2013;Wagner, 2007). Some of these works use the term language as resource in the discussion of multilingual mathematics teaching and learning, in relation to minority languages-the languages that people in a context perceive as such-and in the representation of a sort of ideal that multilingual educational settings should pursue.…”

Volume 13 Issue 7b Complete Issue

“…Perceiving English language-learning students as no different from their peers hinders teachers' ability to see these students' specific additional linguistic resources, resulting in fewer ways to utilize such resources (Reeves, 2009). In contrast, identifying English-learning students as problem solvers and mathematical thinkers has been shown to help students to develop their identity as capable mathematics learners (Turner, Dominguez, Maldonado, & Empson, 2013). Peers can have an equally high impact.…”

More Than Just Skill: Examining Mathematics Identities, Racialized Narratives, and Remediation Among Black Undergraduates

“…served up on nearly every scholarly table" (p. 324; see also Gee, 2001), identity is a relatively recent entrant into mathematics education discourse-emerging mostly within the past 2 decades. Much of this scholarship has relied on conceptions of identity that have been introduced in other, broader fields of study, including psychology, anthropology, linguistics (especially, sociolinguistics and discourse and narrative studies), and sociology (e.g., Berry, 2008;Bishop, 2012;Boaler & Greeno, 2000;Cobb, Gresalfi, & Hodge, 2009;de Freitas, 2008;Heyd-Metzuyanim & Sfard, 2011;Horn, 2008;Jackson, 2009;Martin, 2000;Nasir, 2002Nasir, , 2011Sfard, 2008;Sfard & Prusak, 2005;Solomon, 2009;Spencer, 2009;Turner, Dominguez, Maldonado, & Empson, 2013). In all cases, this scholarship has established a strong theoretical link between identity construction and mathematics-learning experiences and proficiencies (Bishop, 2012).…”