Att bli matematisk : Matematisk subjektivitet och genus i lärarutbildningen för de yngre åldrarna

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to investigate the processes through which mathematical and gendered subjectivity is constituted, reconstituted and maintained in different situations during Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECE). In three research articles it is investigated how student teachers’ subjectivity constitutions are expressed, formulated and reformulated in different discursive and material practices. With the support of feminist poststructural theories, student teachers’ subjectification processes are investigated in relation to the subject of mathematics, gender, different learning and teaching discourses, materials and environments. During the course of the work a theoretical transit is carried out: from Judith Butler’s theories (1990, 1993 and 1997) to Karen Barad’s (2007, 2008) theoretical territory. The empirical data was collected from three cohorts (2005-2007) of a ten-week long mathematics course included in a one-year ECE course called Investigative Pedagogy – Dialogue Reggio Emilia. Examples of the data include memory stories written by student teachers, pedagogical documentation from different mathematics projects, field notes from action research studies in ECE education, survey results and students’ reports. Methodologically, in relation to the first and second articles the thesis works with feminist discourse analysis, deconstructive and performative methodology and in relation to the third article with diffractive and intra-active methodology. The results show examples of how student teachers constitute mathematical subjectivity through complex networks of social relations, learning discourses, gender, material practices, time, space and place. Taking part in alternative, aesthetic interdisciplinary learning practices changes the understanding of student teachers’ mathematical subjectivity, although not always in predictable or uncomplicated ways. In the shift from a discursive and performative way of understanding mathematical subjectivity to an agentic realistic one, the understanding of mathematical subjectivity is widened to include things, materials and environments. This shift implies a decisive meaning for how pedagogical practices can be viewed and, in the long run, how mathematics didactics can be approached for student teachers and young children alike.