How active involvement in learning mathematics can preclude meaningful engagement: contributions from Foucault

Abstract

The intention in this article is to make problematic the notion of active involvement in learning from a poststructuralist perspective. Specifically, the author argues that students are always actively involved and always learning and that such learning can have positive or negative effects. she uses the poststructuralist concept of power/knowledge within discourses such as mathematics education to argue that if we want students to be empowered or enfranchised within the discourse, it is the degree of individual engagement that matters. Engagement is measured by the degree to which students are variously able to take themselves up as authoritative speakers of the recognised 'truths' of the discipline or discourse, and refers directly to the power/knowledge nexus (Foucault, in Bernauer & Rasmussen, 1987) operating in the classroom.