blocked off!”

The use of textbooks in mathematics classrooms has the potential to displace a teacher’s ability to shape in their learners an identity of participation. In such settings, issues of inclusion and exclusion in learning communities are revealed. Thus, some young people are shaping an identity of non-participation maintained by the practice of relying on textbooks to teach mathematics. This paper draws on research in progress to argue that the practice of using textbooks influences identities and the forms of participation in mathematics learning communities. Learning mathematics in secondary mathematics education classrooms and to a certain degree in primary classrooms is still largely based on the assumption that it is learned from a textbook (Harries & Sutherland, 1999; Shield, 2000), is an individual process, and separated from other curriculum areas and activities (Askew, 2001; Nickson, 2002). In this context, students are restricted to solving routine problems that are broken into discrete steps and isolated from students ’ real world experiences. In much the same way, students are tested on their knowledge and understanding which has largely been acquired, if at all, through repetitive drill and practice exercises from mathematics textbooks, and with som