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Fraction detectives: bilingual students investigate the hidden identities of equivalent fractions

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Abstract

This paper conceptualizes children’s mathematical thinking from a materialist perspective on language and mathematics. This perspective considers human and non-human bodies as ontologically equivalent; that is, as both being agentive, vibrant, and animated, thus resisting static representations. This conceptualization is an alternative to the interactionist and language-based models that have dominated research in language and mathematics. This conceptual approach informs the paper’s non-hierarchical analysis of a bilingual classroom studying the concept of equivalent fractions. The non-hierarchical nature of this analysis permits a dynamic shift of focus from learners to materials to mathematical concepts. This non-traditional analysis informs the paper’s final discussion regarding the nature of children’s mathematical thinking. The discussion highlights how working outside language-based interactionist models provides an alternative view of children and artefacts as equal partners working within and as part of the vibrant boundaries between matter and meaning.

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  1. College of Education, Michigan State University, 620 Farm Lane, 116K Erickson Hall, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1034, USA

    Higinio Dominguez

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  1. Higinio Dominguez
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Correspondence to Higinio Dominguez.

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Dominguez, H. Fraction detectives: bilingual students investigate the hidden identities of equivalent fractions. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 393–404 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-020-01218-x

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