ABSTRACT
In their review and theoretical framing of recent equity and diversity research, Cobb and Hodge (2002) set out a number of issues which resonate with my overall project in this book in explaining how mathematical identities develop. My primary aim has been to understand how different individuals in the same classroom can develop very different relationships with mathematics, by capturing the complexity of the ways in which they are positioned within mathematics communities and at the same time position themselves within their ongoing narratives or “history-in-person” —“the sediment from past experiences upon which one improvises, using the cultural resources available, in response to the subject positions afforded one in the present” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 18). Similarly, Cobb and Hodge are concerned to explain how:
... the gatekeeping role that mathematics plays in students’ access to educational and economic opportunities is not limited to differences in the ways of knowing associated with participation in the practices of different communities. Instead, it also includes difficulties that students experience in reconciling their views of themselves and who they want to become with the identities that they are invited to construct in the mathematics classroom.
(p. 249)