Cultura e afetividade: Influências de valores dos professores de matemática na dimensão afetiva dos alunos

Abstract

This work reports on a study about culture and affect whose aim was to investigate the possible influence of mathematics teachers values on students affect. The research was carried out in a Brazilian urban basic school. We examined the practice of two mathematics teachers and looks for corresponding affective reactions of the students, in terms both of their learning and responses to their teachers practice. The main theoretical frameworks that support the study were based on Bishops and Bishop and colleagues (Bishop, 1988; 2002; Seah & Bishop, 2000; Gunstone et al., 2004) ideas about values of mathematics teachers and the literature on affect in mathematics education. From a qualitative approach of participant observer in the manner of ethnography, data were collected by: (a) a questionnaire for the teacher, (b) audio and video recording of a sequence of mathematics lessons; (c) audio recording of interviews with some students; (d) audio and written recording of observations in class. Both the teachers practices and answers to the questionnaire were analyzed and contrasted in terms of the mathematical values and those of mathematical education and education in general, as described by Bishop and Bishop and colleagues (idem). The students affective reactions were identified in terms of their mathematical beliefs (e.g. Gómez Chacón, 2003), background feelings (Damásio, 1996) and attitudes (e.g. Brito and Gonçalez, 2001). The results of research indicate that the intensity and quality of the interaction between teachers and students, examined in terms of the values above-mentioned, strongly influence the students beliefs in relation to mathematics, to their learning or to the mode of teaching they were submitted. These beliefs, in its turn, seemed to generate pleasant (pleasure, satisfaction, safeness, perseverance) or unpleasant (frustration, despairing, disregarding) background feelings which led the students to manifest positive or negative attitudes in relation to the discipline, respectively. Final remarks concerning the development, results and pedagogical implications of the study are presented. We suggest, in particular, that if the teachers want to be effective reflexive and transformative agents of their practice they must to be aware of the influence of their practices on the students affect.