The narcissism of mathematics education
Alexandre Pais (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Why does mathematics education research creates a reality so at odds with the one experienced by the vast majority of teachers and students worldwide? This article is part of an ongoing project that seeks to analyse the ideological belongings of contemporary educational research, by focusing in the particular case of mathematics education. Here, the author displays some elements of Pfaller’s materialist approach to philosophy and Zizek’s ideology critique to analyse common shared assumptions of researchers when conceiving the influence of their work in practice. It is argued that mathematics education research needs to shift its perspective and recognise in its symptoms—students’ systematic failure, absence of change, increasing of testing, pernicious political and economic influences, etc.—the violent expression of the disavowed part of itself.