SOME PROBLEMS IN RESEARCH ON MATHEMATICS TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM A SOCIO-CULTURAL APPROACH

It is not my intention in this paper to argue for a socio-cultural perspective on mathematics education (see Lerman, 1996) but to examine some of the problems that one faces in research from that perspective. The international group for sociocultural research held its second meeting in Geneva earlier this year (1996) and there is a growing body of research from that group and from its members. In the UK in mathematics education I believe that we have little experience (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Solomon 1989; Nunes & Bryant 1996) and my intention here is to open a discussion about the problems of designing and carrying out sociocultural research. By 'socio-cultural ' I am referring to theories which argue that social and cultural forces are constitutive of human consciousness not merely causative (Smith, 1993, p. 128). In particular, but not exclusively, I will refer to the work of V ygotsky and followers when outlining the theoretical issues that sociocultural research attempts to address in mathematics teaching and learning. It is perhaps more appropriate to describe Vygotskian research as historical-cultural rather than socio-cultural in order to emphasise phylogenesis: "The fossilized form is the end of the thread that ties th