Toward A Cultural-Historical Science of Mathematical Learning

Abstract

Throughout this book, we offer cultural-historical activity theoretic descriptions and analyses of learning in mathematics. Cultural-historical activity theory, as conceived in the Vygotsky-Leont’ev-Holzkamp lineage of work, is incommensurable and irreconcilable with constructivist approaches to mathematical learning. This is so because of the way in which this approach conceives of the relation between the individual and collective, how it conceives of consciousness, and the inherently collective form of all knowledge, all practices, all forms of thought, and so on. In this chapter, we further articulate this approach and how to use it to think about the key phenomena of interest to mathematics educators.