Student Positioning and Perceptions of Competence During Group Work in High School Mathematics

• In Event: High School Students’ Identity, Positioning, and Learning in Mathematics

Abstract

In spite of the promise for groupwork (Cohen & Lotan, 1997) to be an effective teaching and learning tool to move towards equity in the mathematics classroom, challenges can arise when students are asked to build their mathematics understanding together. Students create their own and their classmates’ mathematical competence. My study focuses on student status, positioning, and mathematics learning during groupwork in one high school mathematics classroom. Status characteristics (e.g., gender, race) position students to have different levels of power within a group (Foschi, 1989). Power and status differences are major sources of inequity among students (Cohen, 1997) and potentially become problematic when students are asked to work together in groups.

This teacher used the principles of complex instruction (Cohen & Lotan, 1997) to focus groupwork around creating opportunities for all students to find themselves mathematically competent. When status differences arose, the teacher treated them, by assigning competence (Cohen & Lotan, 1997) to students who previously had lower status and by choosing pedagogical moves that allowed all students space to have their mathematical voices heard. I investigated: 1) How do the teacher’s pedagogical choices impact student status and positioning (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) in this classroom? and 2) How, if at all, does this groupwork structure position students with respect to learning in this classroom?

I used ethnographic methods for data collection, including: 1) fieldnotes taken during classroom observations, 2) qualitative records created after a classroom session, 3) audio and video recordings of classroom observations, 4) audio and video recordings of semi-structured and open-ended interviews with the teacher and students, and 5) student artifacts, including, for example, classwork, homework, projects, quizzes, and tests.

I will share findings regarding the following: 1) the ways the teacher attended to status differences among students, 2) how students perceived and responded to status treatments and to the pedagogy of the classroom, 3) how and when students positioned themselves and their peers to be smart in mathematics, and 4) how and whether status treatments appeared to make a difference in moving towards more equitable interactions and mathematics learning in this classroom.

This work is significant because I incorporate student perceptions of their own and their peers’ positioning, mathematical competence, and learning. I relate these student perceptions to the ways that the teacher’s pedagogical choices impact status and positioning in the classroom.

Author

• Teresa Kathleen Dunleavy, University of Washington