Miwa Aoki Takeuchi

Friendships and Group Work in Linguistically Diverse Mathematics Classrooms: Opportunities to Learn for English Language Learners

This ethnographic study examined students’ opportunities to learn in linguistically diverse mathematics classrooms in a Canadian elementary school. I specifically examined the contextual change of group work, which influenced opportunities to learn for newly arrived English language learners (ELLs). Based on analyses of video-recorded interactions, this study revealed a shift in these ELLs’ opportunities to learn from when they worked with teacher-assigned peers to when they worked with friends. In both settings, ELLs tended to be positioned as novices. However, when working with friends, they accessed a wider variety of work practices. In friend groups, ELLs were occasionally positioned as experts and had more opportunities to raise questions and offer ideas. In contrast, when working with teacher-assigned peers, ELLs tended to remain in the position of being helped. In some teacher-assigned groups, interactions were characterized as authoritative, and ELLs’ contributions and ideas were rejected or neglected without relevant justifications or mathematical authority established by their peers. The findings contribute to ongoing discussions on group work and friendship in linguistically diverse classrooms.

The Situated Multiliteracies Approach to Classroom Participation: English Language Learners' Participation in Classroom Mathematics Practices.

Guided by sociocultural theory and the theory of multiliteracies, learning is perceived as a shifting participation in practices, which is mediated by multiple physical and symbolic tools. Drawing on the situated multiliteracies approach, which integrates these two theories, the purpose of this ethnographic research is to examine the participation of English language learners (ELLs) in mathematics practices in an urban Canadian classroom. This study describes ELLs’ successful participation in classroom mathematics practices in relation to the context that supported their participation. I highlight the teacher’s use of multiple languages and physical and symbolic tools, along with her affirmation of students’ identities as multimodal users. The finding from this study calls for broadening the definition of language in content-area classrooms and for embracing identities created through classroom interactions as an integral part of learning.

Students’ Emotional Experiences Learning Mathematics in Canadian Schools

In this chapter, we draw on Canadian Kindergarten to Grade 9 students’ autobiographical accounts of learning mathematics in schools and their drawings of their feelings about doing mathematics in order to explore students’ relationships with mathematics and the emotions associated with doing mathematics. Drawing on enactivist thought, we offer insight into the complex relationship between emotion and learning. Our analysis reveals a nuanced emotional landscape associated with learning mathematics, including positive, negative, and highly topic-dependent relationships with mathematics among this population, together with narratives of changing relationships that shed light on the kinds of pedagogies that support and detract from learning. Drawings of students’ heads feature widely in the data, prompting us to raise questions about the disembodied nature of mathematics learning in schools.

Examining contextual influences on students’ emotional relationships with mathematics in the early years

ABSTRACT While there is much written on students’ emotions in learning mathematics, as yet, few studies have investigated students’ experiences in the early grades (age: 4–9). Our research examining young students’ mathematics autobiographies – first-hand accounts of the experience of learning mathematics – provides insight into how students’ images of mathematics and their feelings about learning mathematics at this age are shaped by contextual influences. In this article, we particularly focus on the multiple contextual influences evident in such autobiographies, including parents’ voices and the cultural norms associated with classroom practices. Our analysis reveals how students’ prior and current experiences of early years’ classroom practices and also their relationships with parents are drawn on in voicing images of, and emotional relationships with, mathematics. Through the use of mathematics autobiographies, including student drawings, this article adds to the existing body of literature on emotion and mathematics learning, by revealing young children’s complex emotional relationships with mathematics.

Conversions for Life: Transnational Families’ Mathematical Funds of Knowledge

In this chapter, I highlight mathematical funds of knowledge unique to transnational families by introducing a study conducted in an urban area of Japan, which is becoming increasingly linguistically and ethnically diverse. This chapter builds on sociocultural theory and the perspective of funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992), while paying attention to power dynamics, which is critical to interrogate the legitimacy of knowledge exchanged in school contexts. Based on the framework of tool-and-result methodology (Newman & Holzman, 1993), this study was designed to better understand the needs of Filipino transnational families and also to explore potential actions to collectively address these needs. In the interviews, Filipina transnational mothers commonly undervalued their knowledge and their involvement in school education for their children. Based on this finding, workshops with a group of these mothers were organized. The interactions during the workshops revealed one of the mathematical practices that they used daily: calculating international currency conversions. Interviews with their school-aged children suggested how these children were able to apply the knowledge of international currency conversion and ratios learned through discussions with their mothers. I conclude this chapter by discussing the possibilities of making explicit the lens of power to the study of funds of knowledge and also by providing pedagogical implications for mathematical teaching and learning in the context of globalization.