Mathematics Education and Language: Interpreting Hermeneutics and Post-Structuralism: v. 20 (Mathematics Education Library) - Hardcover

Brown, Tony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792345541 ISBN 13: 9780792345541

Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997

Synopsis

Contemporary thinking on philosophy and the social sciences has been dominated by analyses that emphasize the importance of language in understanding societies and individuals functioning within them; important developments which have been under-utilized by researchers in mathematics education. This text aims to reach out to contemporary work in these broader fields; drawing on original sources in key areas such as Gadamer and Ricoeur's development of hermeneutics, Habermas' work in critical social theory, Schutz's social phenomenology, Saussure's linguistics and the post-structuralist analysis of Derrida, Foucault and Barthes. Through examining the writings of these major thinkers it is shown how language is necessarily instrumental in developing mathematical understanding; but a language that is in a permanent state of becoming, resisting stable connections to the ideas it locates. The analysis offered extends from children doing mathematics to teachers inspecting and developing their own professional practices.

About this title

Review

Mathematics Education and Language is a highly recommendable book. The book contains many richly described episodes of mathematical activities.' Linguistics and Education, 12:2 (2001)

Edition details

• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792345541
• ISBN 13: 9780792345541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 282