The relevance of mathematics and students’ identities

International audienceThis paper reports on a project, which explores the relevance of mathematics to students in an Ethiopian school. The data collection, which involved group interviews, was undertaken in 2010-2011. The analysis process identified themes that captured diverse perceptions of relevance and students’ identities. The focus of this paper is on diverse aspects of students’ identities and their relationship with students’ perceptions of the relevance of mathematics. The analytic framework is cultural historical activity theory. The results indicate that the students’ perceptions of relevance and identity are dialectically related