ABSTRACT
We have been developing a research programme in mathematics education based on key concepts from socio-cultural theory that foreground the interactive and communicative conditions for learning, and the inherently social and cultural nature of cognition itself (Goos, Galbraith and Renshaw, 1994; Goos, Galbraith and Renshaw, 1996; Renshaw, 1996). The socio-cultural perspective is one of a number of contemporary models of learning that is attempting to reform classroom practices by promoting less hierarchical, more interactive, more networked forms of communication within the classroom, and more explicit consideration of the connection between classrooms and the cultural and institutional practices of related communities, specifically in this context, knowledge communities where mathematics is an important cultural tool. The centrality of community in socio-cultural theory reflects the view that knowledge acquisition should be seen as progress to more complete participation in the practices, beliefs, conventions and values of communities of practitioners, and not primarily as the acquisition of mental structures per se.
