Critical analysis of discourses of mathematics teachers and their students: subjectivities and knowledge in heterogeneous classrooms

Abstract

This article aims to make a critical discourse analysis of teachers and students regarding the notion of successful student in mathematics and the mathematical knowledge that such students must give account. The study is part of a qualitative research tradition using poststructuralism as a theoretical / methodological approach and notions of discourse and governmentality built by Michel Foucault. The research results show that the notion of successful student in mathematics is the construction of a student who has an innate mathematical ability, who is a rational subject, who has self-regulation on his/her behavior and, who belongs to a well-established family. Finally, the effects of the creation of this category in students categorized in this way, note that these subjects tend to perform the discursive label assigned to them within the educational context studied.