The constructivist learner: towards a genealogy

© 2016 Rachel Jane FlenleyThis thesis traces the genealogy of constructivism in Australian primary mathematics education. I place my focus on the mathematical learner and consider how this learner has been shaped, in turn and together, by three significant forms of the discourse—Piagetian, radical and social constructivism. Motivated by my own experiences as a primary teacher and educational publisher, I investigate how it has been possible for the constructivist learner to become a leading learner subjectivity in mathematics education today and analyse the effects of this predominance. To study this ‘problem’ of the constructivist learner, I follow Michel Foucault’s genealogical approach to discourse analysis, and undertake a history of the present. Drawing on a range of documents including curriculum frameworks, mathematics education association material and teacher education texts, I study the constructivist learner of three different eras—1965–1975, 1985–1995 and 2005–2015. I examine the conditions of possibility for each learner, consider who this learner is allowed to be, and, who is allowed to be this learner. Taking a step back from taken for granted assumptions about constructivism, I reflect upon what this opens up and closes down for learners and learning. The thesis analyses the constructivist learner as a shifting subject, emerging from historical-cultural contexts, and in response to theoretical shifts in—and pedagogical recontextualisations of—the constructivist discourse. However, the thesis also finds certain continuities in the conceptualisations: the constructivist learner is engaged, active, a rational thinker and a collaborative problem-solver. I propose that this subjectivity embodies Australia’s hopes for the ideal 21st century citizen and fears for those who fail to attain this ideal. While these aspirations are future-oriented, I claim they attach to our progressivist past as well as our neoliberal present. In understanding subjectivity as both discursively produced and mutable, I argue that the constructivist learner is neither a natural, nor necessary, subjectivity and that its dominance has closed down the possibility of other learner subjectivities. Rather than arguing against constructivism, I seek a consideration of other types of learners and space for other learning theories