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| Author(s): |
Denise Silva Vilela
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Educação |
| Defense date: | 2007-09-20 |
| Examining board members: |
Antonio Miguel;
Gelsa Knijnik;
Ana Luiza Bustamante Smolka;
Dario Fiorentini;
Joao Jose Almeida Lima
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| Advisor: | Antonio Miguel |
| Abstract | |
How used the term Mathematic in Mathematics Education literature has been? This is the main question that guides this investigation, supported by recent academic researches and publications in the field of Mathematics Education. Based on these writings, we have noticed the existence of several ways of adjetivizing the term mathematics such as: school mathematics, street mathematics, academic mathematics, popular mathematics, everyday mathematics, and so on. After analyzing some of these works, it can be seen that these adjectives, that often show up in pairs, point to mathematics specificities, such as difference in results, processes, values, meanings, concepts etc. From a global view of the specificities pointed in all researched texts, adjectives are understood as language-games that do not have an essence, but would present family resemblances, in the sense given by Wittgenstein to these concepts. To answer the question stated above, we were inspired by these Wittgenstein¿s concepts, as well as by his conception of philosophy, which has a tendency to broaden meanings through the use descriptions of a concept. This allows dissolving na essentialist notion of meaning as a last and universal reference. In order to search for a sociological sense for these adjectivize, our goal is to historically rescue this tendency to adjective in the current context of cultural studies in which modernity values are questioned. Thus, a philosophical explanation is broadened by concepts of Bourdieu's sociology, specially the concept of scientific field. The adjectives would express a struggle within the mathematics field, and the recognition that there is mathematical knowledge production in many practices beyond the professional mathematicians¿, like teachers¿, professional groups¿ etc. That is, adjectives are understood as objectivations for new terms of a grammar of mathematics fields. Besides, this work indicates elements for a understanding of mathematics as social practices, not merely determined by rational and intended strategies, but also as practices conditioned by language structures, which implies regularities that limit and adjust the possibilities of understanding and developmenting of mathematics within specific practices, but not representing regulations that could hinder new uses (AU) | |