Mathematics and Narrative

Abstract

Abstract Recent work in the area of mathematics education has been informed by the process writing movement in language education and by challenges to dominant literacies in school subjects including mathematics and science. Specifically, writers concerned with the exclusion of many children and adults from dominant mathematical practices have argued that narrative approaches to mathematics are both desirable and possible. An examination of mathematics writing in historical perspective suggests, however, that mathematicians operate within a number of non-narrative genres through which mathematical meanings are constituted; this paper argues that the solution to underachievement in mathematics lies in explicit teaching of such genres and a recognition of a mathematical tradition which lies outside of individual authorship.