Mathematics from Another World: Traditional Communities and the Alienation of Learners ¬リニ

This article reports upon a study of students learning mathematics in six English schools. Interviews with 76 students from the schools are analyzed in order to understand the nature of the classroom communities in which students work; the students' perceptions of these communities, and the impact of their perceptions upon knowledge development and use. The students in the study reported that social interactions, variety, and meaning were central to positive learning experiences, yet dominant school practices they experienced were memorization, reproduction of procedures, and individualized work. It is argued that teaching and learning practices are central to the knowledge students learn and that those of traditional classrooms are sufficiently strange and other-worldly to create a limiting effect upon students' use of mathematics in non-classroom situations.