Wednesday 19 November, 5pm in WT0.01 (Westwood Teaching Building, Westwood Campus).

Dr Candia Morgan (Institute of Education, University of London)

"Curriculum Texts: Constructing mathematics, teachers and students."

Abstract: Curriculum documents, texts providing guidance for teachers and textbooks intended for classroom use not only define the mathematics that is to be taught and learnt but also construct positions for teachers and for students, suggesting qualities they may have and ways in which they may act. While these constructed positions do not determine the actual positions adopted in the classroom, they make a privileged contribution to the resources that participants draw on as they work out their identities as teachers and students of mathematics. Using tools drawn from Critical Discourse Analysis, I shall examine some examples taken from the official discourse of the mathematics curriculum in order to consider the nature of the pedagogic relationships and the teacher and student positions made available.

The evening seminar is part of the Midlands Mathematics Education Seminar series, a collaboration between the universities of Birmingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Oxford and Warwick. Full details of this series can be found online at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/mmes.

If you would like to attend either seminar please contact Sam Gannon on s.b.gannon@warwick.ac.uk.