Refusing mathematics: a discourse theory approach on the politics of identity work

Although many scholars in the field of mathematics education are aware that identity discourses are highly political, research in the field usually lacks a framework theoretically and methodologically to address the political dimension of identity research. Based on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and the case of a female secondary school student at a German public school, the present paper analyses identity as a socio-political process of identity work articulated around the discourse of ‘refusing school mathematics’ in our contemporary times. Her refusal of mathematics is constituted around issues related to a series of noted classroom practices such as collective work, being together and having fun, relevance of mathematics in society and life, respect of one’s own dignity instead of becoming humiliated, and bodily activity instead of seated work. We illustrate how discourse theory allows us to see the identity work of refusing mathematics as a contingent process in a discursive field of socio-political struggle. In this process the subject moves beyond an essentialist ‘refusal’ of mathemat- ics learning towards articulating her refusal of a particular mathematics education socio-materiality that needs to become subverted and reworked into more affirmative terms.