In mathematics education research and practice today we notice a change in the multiplicity of approaches that allow us to widen our perspectives on diverse social, political and cultural dimensions of mathematics education. This chapter provides an overview of trends and a critical discussion of the use of theories to approach, discuss and critique research and practices in mathematics education, particularly with attention to social, political and cultural dimensions.

The Encyclopedia is intended to be a comprehensive reference text, covering every topic in the field with entries ranging from short descriptions to much longer pieces where the topic warrants more elaboration. The entries will provide access to theories and to research in the area and will refer to some of the leading publications for further reading.

The focus of this paper is methodological and theoretical. By means of a re-analysis of a transcript from a research publication, we attempt to show how the researcher, in a similar way as we have observed teachers in classrooms, guides the students towards more or less general mathematical investigations in the context of solving a task. We intend to raise methodological issues related to the original as compared to our interpretation of the data. In addition, we want to exemplify the starting point of the development of a language of description that allows accounting for the emergence and distribution of unequal attainment in mathematics at the micro-level of classroom interaction.

Projektet syftar till att utveckla en integrerad bild av matematiska, didaktiska och mer generella sociala dimensioner av problematiken och fokuserar på de studerandes medvetenhet om den nya typ av matematik de möter samt relatera deras erfarenheter av övergången gymnasium-högskola till studieresultaten under det första året. Följande frågor behandlas: Vilken typ av matematik kan identifieras i den institutionaliserade inledande högskolematematiken? Vilka likheter och skillnader finns gentemot gymnasiematematiken? Hur upplever de studerande likheter och skillnader mellan att studera matematik på gymnasium och högskola? Hur är deras uppfattningar relaterade till sociala dimensioner av övergångenfrån skola till högskola, till deras tänkta yrkeskarriär och framgång i studierna?

The chapter scrutinises the practice and rhetoric of mathematical modelling in primary and secondary mathematics classrooms from a sociological perspective. In classrooms, mathematical modelling tasks involve a variation of knowledge domains that can be analysed by employing the Bernsteinian notion of knowledge recontextualisation. By drawing on structurally different examples of modelling activities in mathematics classrooms, the chapter reconsiders the ways in which the recontextualisation principle connects to issues of access, control and success. The chapter also raises some issues that are related to the social emptiness of a curriculum with a focus on developing generic competencies through mathematical modelling. It is argued that descriptions of mathematical modelling without reference to the social community in which the modelling takes place, leave a vacant space that can be filled with different ideologies. This contributes to the mythologising of the educational effects of mathematical modelling.