Figures of Speech : The Rhetorical Turn of Adult Mathematics

This is an empirical study of how the mathematical talk of adult learners constructs/reconstructs different mathematical discourses. The study is to be regarded as an attempt to develop a discursive approach within the field of mathematics education and to complicate the status of mathematics in education and in society in general. My theoretical underpinnings consist of three possible mathematical discourses – coercive, regulative and emancipative mathematics. From a discursive psychology perspective, I let these discourses function as analytical interpretive repertoires in relation to the adult learners’ rhetorical use of mathematics and their claiming of mathematical subject-positions, named the coerced, the self-regulating and the responsible mathematician. The conclusions are concentrated around a discussion about the rhetorical turn of adult mathematics in which I focus on mathematics and its relation to the becoming of the self-regulating subject. I continue by arguing that a focus on how the participants deal with mathematics, rather than how they learn mathematics, can generate new perspectives on the teaching praxis of mathematics education