ABSTRACT
This chapter considers cross-subject analyses relevant to themes formulated in the previous chapter for the qualitative phase of the study. These themes include:
1 developing my way of understanding the context of activity as positioning in discursive practices, drawing on discussions in Chapters 6 and 7
2 assessing the idea of the situatedness of thinking, that is, the inseparability of task and context
3a reconsidering gender differences in performance, understood not as resulting from differences in biology or ‘essence’ between males and females, but from differences in positioning within practices
3b reconsidering social class differences using a similar analysis 4 reconsidering the idea that numerate cognition is specific to the context – in the
light of understanding the context as in (1) 5 exploring the idea that mathematical thinking is ‘hot’, that is, infused with
emotion 6 reconsidering the claim that there are gender differences in experiencing
anxiety.
