How binary thinking in school mathematics masks and maintains its coercive and conservative effects: a poststructuralist analysis

Abstract

In this paper we contemplate the potential dangers of binary thinking in school mathematics. From a poststructuralist perspective, we suggest that binary thinking insinuates itself into classroom practices and relationships and supports or suppresses students’ participation and sense of themselves as competent, numerate persons. As well, binary thinking is conservative in that it blinds educators and researchers, and the students themselves, to the long-term effects of discursive practices that can sometimes result in a ‘dumbing down’ of the curriculum and make authentic participation on the students’ part a pretence.