PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (Vol 2)
2012
Portland, Oregon
The Search for the Normative Identity in a College Algebra Class
Page: 2-227
This paper presents results from a qualitative study examining talk about classroom norms from two students and the instructor from a single college algebra classroom. Three cases are presented and interpreted using an interpretive scheme developed by Cobb & Hodge (2007). This study considers the following questions: (a) How do participants talk about the normative identity? and (b) How do participants talk about themselves with respect to the normative identity? Results include participants’ observations, interpretations, and evaluations of students’ general social and specifically mathematical obligations. Results indicate that participants were aware of classroom norms and were able to describe several students’ obligations in rich detail. Further, participants described their roles in negotiating these classroom norms, illuminating issues of authority and agency for all participants. Taken together, the results provide unique insights into classroom activity and culture, which have implications for future work on identity and for teaching at the collegiate level.