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While international research has demonstrated that ability grouping is inequitable, Australian research has often overlooked equity concerns, predominantly focusing on studying the benefits of grouping for students perceived to have high ability, especially in mathematics. This paper investigates the effect that mathematics ability grouping has on senior secondary mathematics participation for low and middle grouped students in New South Wales, Australia. We drew on interviews about mathematics participation with 85 students and 22 mathematics teachers from 11 government high schools. Our thematic analysis of these data identified that secondary school grouping practices often serve to entrench student interest and/or performance from primary school. This has consequences for many students, with a differentiated curriculum in Years 9 and 10 precluding low and middle grouped students from participating in high-level mathematics when they reach senior secondary school. These findings raise serious equity questions about the current push in Australia for universities to re-introduce high-level mathematics as a prerequisite to entering certain degrees. We argue that stakeholders need greater awareness of the consequences of ability grouping and that those seeking to lift post-compulsory mathematics participation should be targeting primary and early secondary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many students are unsuccessful in the study of school mathematics, not because of some innate ability, but because of pedagogical practices. Bernstein (1996) has argued that pedagogy serves as a mechanism for cultural reproduction, so that for those students whose cultures are different from that represented in and through pedagogy, the task of constructing school mathematics is made more difficult. The paper explores the ways in which a teacher changes the pedagogic relay in order to be more inclusive of her students. Her practice is informed by understanding the ways in which pedagogy is a subtle tool for marginalization in mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]