Manifestations of Mathematics Within the Disciplinary Dynamics of a Pre-Kindergarten Classroom

• In Event: 66.080 - Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 66.080-10 - Possibilities and Vulnerabilities in Early Childhood Education STEM

Abstract

This video-ethnography research in a Pre-Kindergarten classroom elicited insights about how discipline is institutionalized within the contexts of schools, and how a school’s disciplinary mechanisms are infused in mathematical practices in a classroom of young children. As mathematics was enacted in multiple discourses, key scenes from the study showed verbal and bodily rules inserted in mathematical curriculum times, and demonstrated ways in which mathematics becomes a disciplinary tool itself during the course of the day, with its authoritative, and classificatory nature. Along with unpacking the norms about appropriate ways of being when engaging in mathematics, this research has implications for considering how, when, and why children might be discouraged from engaging their bodies meaningfully in mathematics practices in a Pre-K classroom.

Authors

• Elif Karsli, TED University

• Martha A. Allexsaht-Snider, University of Georgia