ABSTRACT
Learning maths involves forming a relationship with the subject—of love, hate, pain and/or pleasure. Central to this are the stories people tell about maths and about themselves in relation to it. Stories of natural ability and child prodigies continue to dominate over ones of ordinary folk who achieve mathematically through hard work, reflecting the dominance of what Mark Boylan and Hilary Povey call ‘Ability thinking’. Another recent change has been the expansion of online content. How mathematics appears in popular culture is now less reliant on mass media texts like the films mentioned above than in the past and more open to shaping from below through the heterogeneous spaces of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on. The financial crisis has transformed the world: millions have lost homes, jobs or both. In the countries most affected, rates of suicide, addiction and physical and mental health problems have increased dramatically driven by cuts to essential health and social services.
