A Study on Social Practices in Elementary Mathematics Classroom

초등학교 수학교실에 사회적 관행 분석

  • Published : 2004.11.01

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand teaching and learning mathematics in elementary school classroom by considering mathematics as a kind of social practices and mathematics classroom as a kind of community of practice. The research questions of this study are as followings: 1) Which kinds of lesson organization reveal? 2) Which kinds of social participation structure reveal? 3) Which processes of making meaning reveal? This study was based on ethnomethodology. It was executed participation observations, interviews and surveys with teacher and 5 graders to collect the data related to the social practices formed their classroom. The social practices of mathematics classroom was analyzed from three aspects such as lesson organization, social participation structure and making meaning. The results from which we analyzed the social practices of the mathematics classroom are as followings. From the aspect of lessons organization, the teacher had a lot of power and authorities in the classroom and used them to elicitate students' responses. From the aspect of social participation structure, five SPSs(social participation structures) which revealed in Jo(1997)'s economics classrooms, were shown in this mathematics classroom, but there were a difference to the situations or frequencies which the SPSs appeared. From the aspect of making meaning, it was common that meanings are formed by the explanation of the teacher, but the teacher didn't deliver the mathematical meanings directly. She tried to interact with students to arrive shared meanings.

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