Abstract
We explore tensions between research on policy that tends to focus at broad scale and at a distance from practice and research on discourse that focuses at small scale and in close proximity to practice. This tension is reflected in how each area conceptualizes equity, with policy researchers generally focused on access and achievement and discourse researchers focused on power and identity. The chapter is posed as a dialogue, using interviews from policy experts and chapters from discourse researchers in this volume, with the goal of identifying both tensions and possibilities for action. These communities described the difficulty of being sensitive to local contexts while at the same time providing opportunities for students to understand and master dominant mathematical forms of language and reasoning. There was some convergence in the two communities, particularly around the notion of building capacity to enact challenging forms of curriculum and instruction across an array of contexts.
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Notes
- 1.
 This committee’s charge was to make recommendations to the U.S. Department of Education about future research funding in mathematics education.
- 2.
The population of Bhutan is similar to that of a small province and smaller than many cities in the U.S. and Canada, but the connections between authorities and schools are more distant, both organizationally and geographically, due to challenging mountain terrain.
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Choppin, J., Wagner, D., Herbel-Eisenmann, B. (2012). Educational Policy and Classroom Discourse Practices: Tensions and Possibilities. In: Herbel-Eisenmann, B., Choppin, J., Wagner, D., Pimm, D. (eds) Equity in Discourse for Mathematics Education. Mathematics Education Library, vol 55. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2813-4_13
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