Abstract
Much recent research in mathematics education has been concerned with the negotiation of meaning between students or between students and teacher. But meaning is always meaning in particular context. Therefore, the negotiation of meaning presupposes a taken-to-be-shared understanding of the situation. In familiar situations, this is relatively unproblematic, but it becomes less so in instances where more than one interpretation of the task at hand is possible. This is perhaps the core of the apparent problems many students seem to have when working with applied mathematics. When more students are working together in such situation, a negotiation of the perspective from which the content should be adderessed must be undertaken.
I analyse an example which illustrates not only how students discuss how to pursue the task, but also how they do this with reference to the mathematics classroom as the setting for the activity. The example will illustrate how negotiation of meaning and task may be linked in ways infelicitous to the learning of modelling and critical reflections. Thus, students may be caught in a double-bind of psychological support and subject matter control.
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Christiansen, I.M. When Negotiation of Meaning is also Negotiation of Task. Educational Studies in Mathematics 34, 1–25 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1002944413332
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1002944413332