Configurações da imagem de si na mobilização para a aprendizagem matemática

Abstract

This research adopts a theoretical view that cognition and affect are (re) constructed over the life experience of an individual within a socio-cultural context, including those at school and outside school. This is study in the research area on Affect in Mathematics Education. Research question is raised by results of previous studies (Melo, 2003) and aims at investigating the relationship between the student´s self image as a mathematics learner (described by feelings and beliefs) and his/her mobilization to learning. Referring to McLeod (1989), we elected the notions of feelings (Damásio, 2004), beliefs (Gomez-Chacon, 2002) and attitudes (Brito, 1996) as constitutive of the phenomenon we investigate. Adopting the notion of mobilization as described by Charlot (2000), we explore it through the students´ attitudes in relation to mathematics classroom practices, described by the patterns of the social and sociomathematical norms (Yackel, 2001) which are shared by the teacher and the students. The research is qualitative, seeking to overcome a dichotomic approach to cognition and affect when explaining learning (Araújo et al. 2003). Different views on the subject under study uses statistical tools and triangulation of data recorded in field notes, produced during an academic year in the classroom observations, questionnaires, scripts of films on mathematics, semi-structured interviews and tests. The context was set in a public school mathematics classroom. Participants are 78 students,under the responsibility of one teacher. The research results indicate that the emotional act (Cobb, Yackel and Wood, 1989), through which different levels of mobilization for the learning of mathematics may be explained, can not be detached from the students self image as a mathematics learner. They also emphasize the important role played by the context in shaping the students self image as mathematics learner. It indicates that the same teacher set up different relationships in each classroom observed, from the negotiation of social and sociomathematical norms in his interaction with students. Finally, the research results illustrate two kinds of students exclusion: an institutional one and the other restricted to the school classrooms. The latter refers to the social interactions between the teacher and his students, which unintentionally reinforced the explicit participation of some, marginalizing others.