ABSTRACT

Word problems are a commonly used genre of mathematics classroom tasks in which mathematical problems are presented in a realistic context. While word problems have been extensively researched as mathematical tasks, less attention has been paid to them as social texts. Research has, however, established differences in how students from different socioeconomic backgrounds respond to word problems, leading to differences in outcomes. In this chapter, I use the Bakhtinian concepts of heteroglossia and dialogicality to explore how word problems produce social stratification through classroom interaction. These ideas are illustrated with examples from an ethnographic study of second-language mathematics classrooms in Canada.