INVESTIGANDO INCLUSÃO, EXCLUSÃO E DIFERENÇA NA EDUCAÇÃO MATEMÁTICA: UMA AVENTURA INSPIRADA EM VYGOTSKY

Abstract

In this article, we present critical reflections about the agenda of the research programme Towards an Inclusive Mathematics Education and how it has developed over the course of 20 years. Our purpose is to chart the theoretical underpinning of our studies focussed on the teaching and learning processes of students socially characterized as belonging to the target audience of Special Education. We adopted methods and techniques associated with documentary research to analyse articles that we have produced and published in this area since the early 2000s. Vygotsky has been a theoretical inspiration throughout our research trajectory: Our initial focus on his concept of tool mediation opened windows onto how the substitution of one tool by another transforms both learning opportunities and mathematical practices; linking his views on the unity of cognition and emotion in lived experiences with contemporary evidence from the field of embodied cognition revealed how past experiences are re-enacted and refined to create new senses of mathematical objects; and, as our research results increasingly suggest that inclusive mathematical practices challenge the inherent ableism in existing education systems, Vygotsky’s vision of social transformation brings sociopolitical considerations to our efforts to understand inclusion, exclusion and difference in mathematics education.

Keywords: Lived Experience, Emotion, Appropriation, Mathematics Education, Equity, Inclusion.