Educ Stud Math (2012) 80:41–55

DOI 10.1007/s10649-012-9386-x

Critical postmodern theory in mathematics education

research: a praxis of uncertainty

David W. Stinson & Erika C. Bullock

Published online: 26 February 2012

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract In this article, the authors provide an overview of mathematics education as a

research domain, identifying and briefly discussing four shifts or historical moments. They
illustrate how researchers working in various moments conceptualize not only the interac-
tions among teachers, students, and mathematics differently but also teachers, students, and
mathematics as subjects of inquiry as they ask different questions made possible by different
theoretical perspectives. The authors then provide brief descriptions of critical theory and
postmodern theory, and suggest critical postmodern theory as a hybrid theory that offers a
praxis of uncertainty for reconceptualizing and conducting mathematics education research.
They conclude by summarizing three research articles that they believe exemplify the
empowering and humanizing uncertainties of how teachers, students, mathematics, and the
multiplicity of interactions therein might indeed be reconceptualized with/in critical post-
modern theory.

Keywords Critical theory . Critical postmodern theory . Mathematics education research .

Postmodern theory

1 Introduction

After three decades of the Mathematics for all rhetoric in the United States (Martin, 2003),
the discipline of mathematics continues to be used for social stratification. By third grade
(or sooner), children are often tracked or “sorted” according to their perceived mathematics
“abilities” (Oates, Ormseth, Bell & Camp, 1990). This (perceived) ability tracking continues
to be a fundamental aspect of U.S. mathematics education despite research that has shown
the positive possibilities of de-tracked mathematics classrooms (Boaler & Staples, 2008). In
the United States, as in most Western countries, we appear to be stuck in a discursive binary

D. W. Stinson (*) : E. C. Bullock

College of Education, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3978, Atlanta, GA 30302-3978, USA
e-mail: dstinson@gsu.edu
E. C. Bullock
e-mail: ebullock1@student.gsu.edu
42 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

(cf. Derrida, 1974/1997) derived from a Platonic Ideal: either a child possesses the aristo-
cratic characteristic of intelligence or not, and those who do “should persist in their studies
until they reach the level of pure thought, where they will be able to contemplate the very
nature of number” (Plato, trans. 1996, p. 219). This discursive practice (cf. Foucault, 1969/
1972) of linking (perceived) mathematics ability to intelligence, and thus to power and
privilege, continues to permeate Western ideology.
Bourdieu (1989/1998) referred to this linkage as “psychological brutality,” indicting the
reproductive stratifying strategies of schools that lay down final judgments with no appeal,
“ranking all students in a unique hierarchy of forms of excellence, nowadays dominated by a
single discipline, mathematics” (p. 28). Similarly, Bowles and Gintis (2002), through critical
statistical analysis, showed that for decades schooling in the United States has most often
reproduced the social stratification needs of capitalism rather than pursued goals of equity
(see also Bowles, 1977). Therefore, the strategic hierarchical sorting mechanism of school
mathematics although problematic is somewhat welcomed. Indeed, the often-repeated tenets
of capitalism such as individualism, innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and
preeminence permeate Western education policies; with the latter two clearly entrenched
in U.S. mathematics education policy. Gutstein (2009) recently drew explicit connections
among U.S. education policies, capitalism, income inequalities, and persistent inequities of
educational opportunities in general and mathematics education in particular.
Here, in an effort to point the way to a mathematics education that might be more ethical
and just, we make a case for considering critical postmodern theory (CPT) in mathematics
education research. We believe that CPT provides a means to make visible the Trojan Horse
of the mathematics for all discourse, which, in turn, motivates different questions about and
different possibilities for mathematics teaching and learning. The article is structured into
three sections. In the first section, we provide an overview of mathematics education as a
research domain, identifying and briefly discussing four shifts or moments, and demonstrate
how different theoretical perspectives (or paradigms1) motivate different possibilities (and
impossibilities) for mathematics education research. In the second section, we provide brief
descriptions of critical theory and postmodern theory, and make a case for CPT as a hybrid2
theory that offers a praxis of uncertainty. In the third section, we provide exemplars of how
teachers, students, mathematics, and the multiplicities of interaction therein might indeed be
reconceptualized with/in critical postmodern theory.

2 Zooming out and in yet again

In this section, we do not attempt to provide a comprehensive historical review of mathematics

education as a research domain; that has been done elsewhere (Kilpatrick, 1992). Nor do we
intend to suggest that the four shifts or historical moments of mathematics education research
that we identify and discuss here—the process–product moment (1970s–), the interpretivist–

1
We use the concepts paradigm and theoretical perspective somewhat interchangeably and in a broader sense
than Kuhn’s (1962/1996) paradigm (see, e.g., Donmoyer, 2006). We understand, however, that distinct
theories are reconstituted when enacted within different paradigms (e.g., critical feminism is constituted
differently than poststructural feminism; see Lather and St. Pierre [2005] in Lather, 2006, p. 37).
2
We intentionally use the term hybrid—“a person [or thing] whose background is a blend of two diverse
cultures or traditions” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1999, p. 567)—to make the claim that the
unique components of the critical and the postmodern do not become indistinguishable in the hybrid blend of
critical postmodern theory as they might in a composite or mixing (e.g., the composite or mixing of the
primary colors yellow and blue results in the color green).
Critical postmodern theory in mathematics 43

constructivist moment (1980s–), the social-turn moment (mid 1980s–), and the sociopolitical-
turn moment (2000s–)—have developed in some discrete, linear fashion, moving toward some
ideal. Rather, we see the four moments as distinct yet overlapping and simultaneously operating
moments; as such, we resist identifying end dates. We also acknowledge that our attempt to
mark the beginning of a moment is misleading; mavericks of mathematics education began
developing different possibilities for research long before the decades identified here.3 More-
over, we see efforts to establish the “gold standard” in educational research, be it in theory or
methods, as dangerously short sighted (cf. National Research Council [NRC], 2002). Science is
always already entangled with philosophy (St. Pierre, 2011) and therefore always already
opened to radical and uncertain possibilities (Foucault, 1966/1994; Kuhn, 1962/1996).
Nonetheless, because mathematics and cognitive psychology provided the foundation of
mathematics education research (Kilpatrick, 1992), we begin our discussion here with the
1970s, identifying this decade as the beginning of the process–product moment. Most of the
research in this moment attempts to quantify “effective” mathematics teaching by linking
mathematics teachers’ classroom practices (process) to student outcomes (product; e.g.,
Good & Grouws, 1979). In this moment, quantitative statistical inference is the primary
methodology.4 This moment is grounded in the positivist (or post-positivist) paradigm of the
Enlightenment; its aim is to “predict” social phenomena by “objectively” observing and
measuring a “reasonable” universe. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, many
mathematics education researchers, troubling the dependency on quantitative statistical
inference, began to explore qualitative methodologies adapted from the disciplines of
anthropology, cultural and social psychology, history, philosophy, and sociology (Lester &
Lambdin, 2003).5
Because research methodologies are inextricably linked to theoretical perspectives
(LeCompte, Preissle & Tesch, 1993), the exploration of qualitative methodologies
motivated many mathematics education researchers to consider different theoretical
perspectives such as interpretivism and constructivism. Although embedded in the
Enlightenment, within the interpretivist–constructivist moment (1980s–), the aim of
research is no longer to predict social phenomena, but rather to understand it. For
example, researchers explore how mathematics teachers come to understand or make
meaning of their pedagogical practices (Thompson, 1984), or how students make
meaning of the very mathematics they are taught (Steffe & Tzur, 1994). Here,
researchers examine mathematics teaching and learning within the dynamic interactions among
teachers-and-students and students-and-students as they engage with mathematics in the
classroom (see, e.g., NRC, 2001, p. 314).

3
For example, Brownell (1947/2004) began writing about children making meaning of mathematics decades
before the interpretivist–constructivist moment of the 1980s. Likewise, Frankenstein (1983/1987) and Skovsmose
(1985) began examining the sociopolitical implications of critical mathematics education several years before the
sociopolitical-turn moment of the 2000s.
4
We are not suggesting that statistical inferential methods are found only in the process–product moment. For
example, Mosqueda (2010) employed these methods to document the injustices of restricting English
language learners in the United States to low- and general-track mathematics courses based solely on their
“proficiency” in English; his study is securely located in the sociopolitical-turn moment.
5
It is important to note that there has been a strong resurgence in the United States of statistical inferential
methods—in the most restrictive sense—as randomized- and quasi-experimental research have been estab-
lished as the “gold standard” in education research generally and mathematics education research specifically.
This privilege is based largely on two highly influential reports: Scientific Research in Education (NRC, 2002)
and Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008). For a
critique of the final report and of the resurgence of restrictive statistical inferential methods, see Kelly (2008).
44 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

But as many mathematics education researchers continue to explore these dynamic

interactions, some have begun to understand the necessity of contextualizing the interactions
in hopes of making meaning of the teaching-and-learning dynamic These researchers,
adapting theoretical perspectives and methodologies from other disciplines, make the social
turn in mathematics education research as they acknowledge that meaning, thinking, and
reasoning are products of social activity in contexts (Lerman, 2000). For example, in the
social-turn moment (mid-1980s–), mathematics teaching-and-learning is understood within
the sociocultural context in which it occurs (Carraher, Carraher & Schliemann, 1987), the
situated context in which it is practiced (Boaler, 1998), and the classroom context in which it
is taken-as-shared (Cobb, Perlwitz & Underwood, 1996). Acknowledging and working
through these complexities, however, presents researchers with unique challenges as
they attempt to bring together individual agency and trajectories and the socio-cultural
and -historical origins of the ways people think, act, and understand the world (Lerman,
2000). Still entrenched in the Enlightenment, research in this moment does not abandon
psychology altogether but rather calls for a sociocultural, discursive psychology in which
mathematics teaching and learning might be understood as a particular moment in the zoom
of a lens (Lerman, 2001).
By zooming out, mathematics education researchers begin to see the interactions that
might occur between and among teachers, students, and mathematics as being rooted in
concentric contexts: classrooms, schools, districts, communities, and societies (Weissglass,
2002). These zoomed-out explorations reveal how the multiplicities of socio-cultural and -
historical discourses that construct and continuously shape those contexts make (or attempt
to make) some interactions possible and others impossible (cf. Foucault, 1969/1972). And
by zooming in, researchers explore the dynamic complexities of how socio-cultural and -
historical discourses have constructed and continuously shape teachers, students, and math-
ematics as subjects of inquiry, which brings the very existence of the mathematics teaching-
and-learning dynamic into question. This back-and-forth zooming has compelled a small
(but growing) number of mathematics education researchers to adopt “a degree of social
consciousness and responsibility in seeing the wider social and political picture” (Gates &
Vistro-Yu, 2003, p. 63) of mathematics education research as they embrace theoretical
perspectives that explore emancipation from or deconstruction of social phenomena rather
than a mere understanding.
Seeing the wider social and political picture characterizes the sociopolitical-turn moment
(2000s–); it signals a shift toward “theoretical perspectives that see knowledge, power,
and identity as interwoven and arising from (and constituted within) social discourses”
(Gutiérrez, 2010, p. 4). Mathematics education researchers who position their work within
this moment recognize that their work is “profoundly cultural and political” (Hardy, 2004, p.
105) as they use old theoretical perspectives in novel and unexpected ways and/or embrace
contemporary theoretical perspectives. For instance, Martin (2010) employs social theory to
deconstruct mathematics education policy, demonstrating how it reifies mathematics as a
White institutional space. Gutstein (2003) uses critical theory as a foundation for
mathematics curriculum, illustrating the empowering possibilities of mathematics
teaching and learning for students and teachers alike. Berry (2008) applies critical
race theory to the schooling experiences of mathematically successful African Amer-
ican middle school boys, highlighting the endemic nature of race and racism in
schools generally and school mathematics specifically. And Walshaw (2001) employs
postmodern theory to reexamine girls’ participation in the mathematics classroom, revealing
how their participation with/in mathematics is gendered in and through the available discourses
and discursive practices.
Critical postmodern theory in mathematics 45

The sociopolitical-turn moment, as we envision it, permits mathematics education

researchers, who work both within and against the Enlightenment6 to maintain the
exhausting process of concurrently zooming out and zooming in only to zoom out and
in yet again. This process not only problematizes the possibilities and impossibilities
of interactions but also deconstructs the binaries used to name the subjects of inquiry
(cf. Derrida, 1974/1997). Here teachers, students, and mathematics are understood as
discursive formations: subjects that are named and renamed (but not determined) with/in
hegemonic socio-cultural, -historical, and -political assumptions, conditions, and power rela-
tions (cf. Foucault, 1969/1972). This moment also has the potential to move researchers away
from an agenda that primarily explores questions of how to improve mathematics teaching and
learning toward an agenda strongly concerned with the often forbidden question of why
mathematics education (Pais, Stentoft & Valero, 2010). Exploring this why question cracks
open mathematics education as a research domain, revealing its fictions, fantasies, and plays of
power (Walkerdine, 2004), its inclusions and exclusions (Skovsmose, 2005). Within the
sociopolitical-turn moment, we believe that CPT provides a means to not only ask this
forbidden why question but also other why and how questions, opening up a praxis of
uncertainty.

3 A praxis of uncertainty

In this section, we do not provide accounts of what mathematics education research “looks
like” within critical theory or postmodern theory; that has been done elsewhere (e.g., Burton,
2003; Walshaw, 2004b, 2010). Nor do we discuss the complexities and contradictions of
pulling concepts from different theories while conducting research; that too, has been done
elsewhere (e.g., Brown & Jones, 2001; Lather, 1991). Our intent here is to briefly describe
critical theory and postmodern theory from our current understandings of these complex and
far-reaching (and somewhat contradictory) theories, and suggest that concepts from both
theoretical perspectives might be used side by side in research—like tools pulled from a tool
box—to short-circuit systems of power (Foucault, 1975/1996a) inherent in mathematics
teaching and learning.
Consequently, we believe for a researcher to assume a fixed theoretical perspective has
the same effect as choosing a hammer to tackle every household task: some things may be
repaired quickly while others may remain unrepaired or, worse yet, irreparably broken. As a
single household task may require multiple tools for repair, a single question or social
phenomenon may require multiple concepts derived from different theories for analysis,
which demands a break from theoretical fundamentalism (Lather, 2006) in favor of a more
eclectic theoretical approach (Stinson, 2009). Lerman (2000) suggested theoretical flexibil-
ity as a “space for the play of ideologies in the process” (p. 20) of adapting and applying
theory. We see theoretical flexibility as sifting data through one theoretical sieve, analyzing
what is captured, and then catching that which remains with the next sieve of theory.
Effective use of theory therefore requires that the researcher assume the responsibility of
scholarly work: the difficult intellectual work of studying the strengths and weaknesses and

6
Working within and against the Enlightenment—the Age of Reason—is a using-it-and-troubling-it state of
mind in which the ideal of Reason is embraced all the while acknowledging that it “is always situated, local,
and specific, formed by values and passions and desires” (St. Pierre, 2000, p. 487). The researcher, then,
maintains an awareness of the tension that exists between her or his simultaneous acceptance and doubt of
Reason as an ideal.
46 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

the convergences and divergences of different theoretical concepts pulled from (at times)
contradictory theoretical perspectives (Paul & Marfo, 2001). Our purpose here is to do this
difficult—yet rewarding—work as it relates to critical theory and postmodern theory. CPT,
as a hybrid theory, we believe, holds fruitful possibilities for reconceptualizing and conduct-
ing mathematics education research. We next turn to our brief descriptions of critical theory and
postmodern theory, followed by a description of what we call a praxis of uncertainty of critical
postmodern theory.

3.1 Critical theory

Embedded in the Enlightenment, critical theory is most often associated with the Frankfurt
School (circa 1920), which holds a Marxist theoretical perspective: to critique and subvert
domination in all its forms (Bottomore, 2001). Critical theory, generally speaking, maintains
critiques on social practices and ideologies that mask “systematically distorted accounts of
reality which attempt to conceal and legitimate asymmetrical power relations” (Bottomore,
2001, p. 209). As an activist and emancipatory project, critical theory calls its claimant to
question the structures that are developed and maintained by “constructors” (Skovsmose,
2005, p. 140) and manifested as false consciousness for those who are constructed within
hegemonic power. Hegemony constructs people as objects—those who are acted upon,
rather than Subjects, those who act—who become so entrenched in their own oppressive
condition that they do not realize their own subjugation or their complicity in the perpetu-
ation of unjust social and economic systems (Freire, 1970/2000). Employing critical theory
creates a tremendous burden of responsibility for the researcher because she or he must
touch the problem in order to change it, instead of simply talking about it (Crotty, 1998); she
or he must respond to Marx’s (1845/1978) chastening: “The philosophers have only
interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” (p. 145, emphasis
in original).
Employing critical theory therefore requires the researcher to use her or his scholarship to
dismantle the constructors’ hegemonic power and the reproduction and execution of that power
through institutions such as media and schools (Slott, 2002). The critical theorist questions the
production, validation, dissemination, and reproduction of knowledge through these institu-
tions; there is no innocence in even those efforts to include those who have hitherto been
alienated (Marx & Engels, 1848/1978) in the conversations, as that which appears to be neutral
is too often rife with hegemonic power. Critical theorists therefore call for all efforts to
disseminate knowledge to be accompanied by an investigation of not only its relation to
ideology and power but also the subjectivities of its (re)producers (Leistyna & Woodrum,
1996). Critical theorists believe that as marginalized individuals and/or groups become critically
aware of their “true” situation, intervene in its reality, and thus take charge of their destiny, they
will exercise their human right to participate with a critical consciousness in the socio-cultural
and -historical transformation of their society (Crotty, 1998).
Accordingly, critical mathematics (accredited to critical theory) acknowledges students
(and teachers) as members of a society rife with hegemonic power; it builds mathematics
around students’ cultural identities in such a way that doing mathematics necessarily takes
up social and political issues as it aims to provide access to dominant (i.e., school)
mathematics for those who have traditionally been excluded (Gutiérrez, 2002). Skovsmose
(1994) named this critical theoretical perspective mathemacy: using mathematics as a
sociopolitical tool “to organize and reorganize interpretations of social institutions, traditions
and proposals for political reforms” (p. 39). Therefore, a challenge for critical mathematics
education “is to retrieve and reshape school mathematics so that it is empowering for all
Critical postmodern theory in mathematics 47

peoples and also edifying for the human spirit of all” (Ernest, 2010, p. 82). In short, critical
mathematics education researchers attempt to broaden the accessibility and purposes of
school mathematics as they work against the status quo in hopes of transforming mathemat-
ics teaching and learning into more humanizing experiences.

3.2 Postmodern theory

Postmodern theory is a critique of the Enlightenment that rejects any static foundational
systems of logic, resulting in truth—and thus, knowledge—becoming fluid and avoiding any
claims of certainty (Ernest, 1997). Here thought (or knowledge) is understood not as a denial
of the existence of Truth, but rather as an acceptance of multiple forms of truth, made and
remade with/in socio-cultural, -historical, and -political discourses (Foucault, 1984/1996b).
Discourses, however, are no longer simply words that might be heard or read but rather
practices that systematically form the possibilities (and impossibilities) of knowledge dis-
courses, too often (re)producing régimes of truth (Foucault, 1969/1972, 1977/1980). Post-
modern theory then is “a movement of ‘unmaking’” (R. Wolin, cited in Crotty, 1998, p. 192)
these régimes, pulling apart reductionistic discursive binaries, such as White/Black, man/
woman, good/bad, rational/irrational as well as teacher/student, that undergird notions of
universal Truth. These binaries are supported by grand meta-narratives (cf. Lyotard, 1979/
1984) that attempt to bring order and closure to a world spinning out of control (Usher &
Edwards, 1994). Pulling apart—or deconstructing (cf. Derrida, 1974/1997)—discursive
binaries works to unsettle and displace binary hierarchies, to uncover their historically
contingent origins and politically charged roles, not to provide a “better” foundation for
knowledge and society, but rather to dislodge their dominance, creating a social space that
demonstrates its tolerance of difference, ambiguity, and playful innovations (Seidman,
1994).
Central to the making of the meta-narrative is the subject (i.e., the individual) who has
been wholly constituted by and with/in discourses and discursive practices. In postmodern
research, however, the subject does not exist as a unified or fixed being but rather as an
infinitely dynamic—neither one nor multiple—fragmented self (Stinson, 2010). Here the
subject, no longer defined once and for all, is continually created and recreated through
socio-cultural, -historical, and -political discourses. But while the subject is limited by these
discourses in ways that she or he may not comprehend, they do not define her or him. The
subject is always already open to the possibilities of subversive repetition: subverting
(or not) the very discourses that attempt to construct or constitute her or him (Butler,
1990/1999). In the end, within postmodern theory, both knowledge and identity are dynamic
rhizomatic7 processes always already open to different lines of flight (Deleuze & Guattari,
1980/1987).
Thus mathematics, within the context of postmodern theory, might be understood as a
discursively constituted “language game”8 of deeply entrenched rules and patterns that are
not only stable and enduring but also always already open to the possibility of change—and,
in fact, do change (Ernest 2004). This infinitely dynamic postmodern approach to

7
Accoring to Deleuze and Guattari (1980/1987), the rhizome refuses linear progression and binary opposi-
tions and is neither one nor multiple. Every point is connected to every other point creating an assemblage that
“has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and which it overspills”
(p. 21). Therefore, in this context, both knowledge (what I think) and identity (who I am) are open to infinite
possibilities that are forever in directionless motion.
8
See Ernest (1998) for a discussion of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics as “a whole language-game
with questions and answers” (L. Wittgenstein, as cited in Ernest, 1998, p. 76).
48 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

knowledge, including knowledge created by mathematics education researchers, takes

critique a step further. Working against the status quo to transform mathematics education
into humanizing experiences is no longer sufficient—and in fact, might even be dangerous.
Here, mathematics education research itself and any activists and emancipatory projects are
investigated, revealing how researchers and their projects are (or not) complicit in the (re)
production of the power relations inherent in the discursive practices of mathematics and
mathematics education research (Valero, 2004). In short, postmodern theory provides a
vehicle through which mathematics education researchers can unmask both the apparent
neutrality of mathematics education reform (Hardy, 2004) and their own complicity in (re)
producing the régime of truth “that the teaching and learning of mathematics deserves a
privileged place in the education of all”—a privileging that, in the end, is complicit in “the
degradation of the human spirit” (Ernest, 2010, pp. 72–73).

3.3 Critical postmodern theory

Working against theoretical fundamentalism (Lather, 2006), CPT, we believe, operates as a

differential consciousness, which Sandoval (2004) compared to the clutch of an automobile:
“the mechanism that permits the driver to select, engage, and disengage gears in a system for
the transmission of power” (p. 203). She further described differential consciousness as
representative of the variance that emerges out of correlations, intensities, junctures, and
crises. As we consider critical theory and postmodern theory independently, we encounter
such variance from which CPT—the synergy of the two—emerges (Kincheloe & McLaren,
1994). To illustrate this synergy, we provide an example of how marginalization and
resistance might be reconceptualized when considering the both—and theoretical perspec-
tive of critical postmodern theory rather than the either—or perspective.
While both critical and postmodern theorists are concerned with marginalization and
resistance, their approaches are significantly different. Consider, for example, the language
game of mathematics. The critical theorist sees the game on two distinct playing fields:
dominant (or school) mathematics and critical (or ethno) mathematics (Gutiérrez, 2002).
Dominant mathematics is a system established as right and True by the White men who have
historically controlled and constructed the game; controlling not only its rules but also those
who might gain access. Critical mathematics, however, is an oppositional system that
exposes the power dynamic between the oppressor—White, male mathematicians—and
the oppressed—the marginalized Other, with the hope of opening up the field of dominant
mathematics to new players. The challenge here, however, is in continuing the ascribed
privilege granted to the field of dominant mathematics. Unfortunately, critical mathematics
is too often reduced to a mere bridge that only leads students to the delimiting possibilities of
“real” dominant mathematics. In this context, the possibilities of mathematics teaching and
learning remain limited and oppressive as dominant mathematics maintains a régime of
truth, yielding no real sense of humanizing liberation.
The postmodern theorist, on the other hand, troubles not only the game and both playing
fields but also any emancipatory project intended to transform the game. In other words,
when considering the game of mathematics, the postmodern theorist questions not only the
rules and the fields but also its very existence. Why play? Through continual deconstruction
and reconstruction, the game of mathematics itself exists in a perpetual state of becoming
(Fleener, 2004) as inner forces and external circumstances intertwine and cross over the
shifting boundaries of the game, flowing one way and ebbing the other (Ernest, 2004). The
issue for the postmodernist is not emancipatory transformation of the game but rather
purpose: forcing mathematics education researchers to think about that which we do not
Critical postmodern theory in mathematics 49

think about, but yet, cannot, not think about (Fleener, 2004). This problematized purpose
leads the postmodern theorist to advise extreme caution with the hopeful emancipation of
critical theory because any emancipatory project presupposes values that cannot be known
universally or once and for all (Brown & Jones, 2001). But this cautious stance causes critics
of postmodern theory to be rather skeptical of the possibilities of any practical contribution
postmodern theory might make to mathematics teaching and learning (Klein, 2002).
So in returning to the game of mathematics, we are confronted on both sides by the
question “Why play?” The postmodern theorist questions the very existence of the game,
while, in response, the critical theorist questions her or his purpose if the game is altogether
dissolved. But what if we hope for emancipation while simultaneously critiquing emanci-
pation? What if we do act while simultaneously rethinking action? In short, what if we
engage in praxis while simultaneously opening up praxis to uncertainty? But then, what is
this praxis of uncertainty? Borrowing from Freire (1970/2000), we see praxis as a contin-
uous cycle of action and reflection in which sacrificing action equates to empty verbalism
while sacrificing reflection equates to mere activism. Freire believed: “There is no true word
that is not at the same time praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world” (p.
87). But here, within a praxis of uncertainty, speaking a true word and transforming the
world are both left open to multiplicitous possibilities; we can only know what these phrases
might mean “in not-ever-knowing but in continuing to learn [and do] something of that ‘not-
ever’ of knowing” (I. Stronach, as cited in Brown & Jones, 2001, p. 104).
We concede that this “theoretical border crossing” (Walshaw, 2004a, p. 11) is messy and not
without its own challenges; critical theory and postmodern theory as previously discussed do
not fit seamlessly together. Indeed, gaps are present in this theoretical hybridization that
simultaneously embraces and critiques the Enlightenment. For instance, one such gap is clearly
visible when considering the concept of change. On the one hand, critical theorists conceptu-
alize change through reflective action (i.e., praxis) on behalf of the oppressed and, in turn,
forcefully and purposefully act, claiming that humanizing actions transform (i.e., change)
society for the greater good. But then on the other hand, postmodern theorists conceptualize
change through continual (and uncertain) deconstruction and, in turn, hesitantly, if at all, act,
claiming that attempts to permanently re-construct that which has been deconstructed only
establishes yet another régime of truth. For the postmodernist, change (i.e., deconstruction/
reconstruction) must be forever in uncertain and somewhat directionless rhizomatic motion.
Nonetheless, in spite of this gap and other challenges, we argue that CPT is a valid approach,
believing that both the seductions of and resistance to postmodern theory can assist us in getting
smart about the limits of critical theory (Lather, 2007). We claim that getting smart provides an
“in between” space—a hybrid space—to reconceptualize mathematics education research in
which the synergy between critical theory and postmodern theory is found in the “interplay
between the praxis of the critical and the radical uncertainty of the postmodern” (Kincheloe &
McLaren, 1994, p, 144). In the end, we believe that the critical postmodern mathematics
education researcher works within a research space of continual and uncertain reconceptuali-
zation of not only the game of mathematics but also mathematics teaching and learning—
leaving teachers, students, mathematics, and the interactions therein always already open to
empowering and humanizing yet uncertain possibilities.

4 Subjects of inquiry, interactions, and critical postmodern theory

In this concluding section, we return to the contextualized interactions among teachers,

students, and mathematics to view the dynamic of mathematics teaching and learning from
50 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

the perspective of CPT. Previously, we argued that, within the sociopolitical-turn moment
(2000s–), teachers, students, and mathematics, as subjects of inquiry, are no longer inno-
cently named but rather are constituted in and through hegemonic socio-cultural, -historical,
and -political assumptions, conditions, and power relations. We have also argued that CPT,
as a hybrid theory, provides a praxis of uncertainty which opens up inquiry into the dynamic
of mathematics teaching and learning to empowering and humanizing yet uncertain possi-
bilities. Here, we briefly summarize three research articles, each primarily focused, in turn,
on teachers, students, and mathematics that, we believe, exemplify this praxis of uncertainty.
That is to say, research articles in which the respective authors, we claim, work in the
synergistic or in between space of the empowering praxis of the critical and the radical
uncertainty of the postmodern. We selected these articles as exemplars not to establish a
disciplinary template for CPT in mathematics education research but rather to ignite critical
reflection upon the possibilities that CPT offers to explore teachers, students, mathematics,
and the interactions therein.

Teachers In “Pre-service Mathematics Teaching in the Context of Schools: An Exploration into

the Constitution of Identity,” Walshaw (2004c), using Foucauldian “tools,” decenters the
unified and stable “teacher identity” developed through a “personal journey” by replacing it
with a fragmented and contingent one that is constituted in and through discourses and
discursive practices. Here teacher identity is not constructed by building upon some core or
essential self but rather by negotiating the surveilling and disciplinary practices of social control
present within classrooms, schools, and university courses. Such a decentering of identity
“forces a rethinking of the notion of the pre-service teacher who has teaching experience
towards conceptualizing the pre-service teacher as constituted through experience” (p. 80,
emphasis in original). To examine how university courses and practicum experiences might
work together to construct or constitute mathematics teacher identity, Walshaw administers a
questionnaire designed to allow pre-service teachers to articulate their experiences at the
beginning and the end of the practicum. From their responses, she gleans references to
normalization practices at work in the practicum experience and the loci of that normalization,
which include, but are not limited to, the school, the classroom, and the cooperating teacher. For
example, Walshaw establishes the practicum classroom as a location characterized by its own
régime of truth “that legitimizes and sanctions a discursive space for certain practices and social
arrangements” (p. 75). Her reconceptualization of “becoming a mathematics teacher” is
intended to open up mathematics teacher education to different possibilities that might honor
the multiple-layered, fragmented, and contingent notion of teacher identity.

Students In “Discourse Positioning and Emotion in School Mathematics Practices,” Evans,

Morgan and Tsatsaroni (2006) address the often-ignored affective dimension of mathematics
teaching and learning. By adopting an interdisciplinary critical theoretical approach, which
draws on discourse theory, social theory, semiotics, and psychoanalysis, they reject the
binaries of individual/social and cognitive/affective. They examine pedagogic discourse
using both structural and textual analysis to highlight the positions, power relations, and
emotional opportunities within the official and everyday discourses that surround three
eighth-grade mathematics students in Lisbon, Portugal. Evans and colleagues use official
policy and student self-evaluation for structural analysis to inform the positions available for
students and the power relationships contained therein. This form of analysis also reveals
how “often there is more than one available position for an individual, either within one
discourse or several competing discourses” (p. 213). They combine the structural analysis
with textual analysis of classroom video transcripts that include emotional observations to
Critical postmodern theory in mathematics 51

reveal how the students reproduce discursive positionings and how those discourses conflict.
Perhaps the most significant observation in the study is the effect of the teacher’s interven-
tion. As students combine local and academic discourses to struggle through a mathematics
problem, the teacher’s intervention, despite helpful intentions, “re-establishes traditional
pedagogic relations…elicits obedience from the students, and acceptance of positioning as
followers, rather than as directors of their own learning” (p. 223). This intervention also
inadvertently dictates the acceptable student emotions in the classroom. In the end, Evans
and colleagues suggest that considering the limitations and conflicts both within and among
discourses operating in the classroom can open up possibilities for developing student
emotional competencies along with mathematical skills.

Mathematics In “Criticisms and Contradictions of Ethnomathematics,” Pais (2011) proposes

the expansion of the common definition of ethnomathematics as indigenous—or non-school—
mathematics to include “a social, historical, political, and economical analysis of how mathe-
matics has become what it is today” (p. 210). He argues that, to date, ethnomathematics has
been a project focused on defining non-Western and non-European mathematical practice in
Western and European terms. Students’ local or indigenous mathematical knowledge, then,
becomes an actor in a foreign classroom, a process that only reifies its marginalization. In this
context, emancipation becomes “access to an participation in a world where mathematical
knowledge is central” (p. 214) and multicultural mathematics education values what the culture
can contribute to Western mathematical understanding rather than the culture itself. Ethno-
mathematics, then, exists only as a counternarrative within the existing structure of dominant
mathematics rather than a voice calling for a reconceptualization of the very structure and
existence of mathematics. Pais posits that mathematics’ emancipatory and empowering value is
not a result of the knowledge that it offers to its possessor, but rather as a result of the social
capital that it affords her or him. Pais calls for mathematics education researchers who employ
ethnomathematics to consider how they too are complicit in perpetuating “Otherness” through
“the benevolent multicultural ideas [they] want to enforce” (p. 227).

The aforementioned research projects demonstrate how teachers, students, and mathe-
matics are no longer reduced to static objects of inquiry but rather understood as dynamic
subjects named and renamed with/in discursive practices. Walshaw (2004c) makes a post-
modern methodological move by opening up the possibilities of analysis for a traditional
data collection technique; namely, she applies postmodern theory to questionnaire responses
rather than waiting for theory to “emerge.” By uncovering the discursive practices of
disciplining and regulation that form the identity of the classroom mathematics teacher,
she exposes the technocratic nature of teacher preparation that suppresses the pre-service
teacher’s humanity and renders her or his experiences invalid and irrelevant to the class-
room. Developing this technocratic perspective on teacher preparation allows those charged
with the teaching of teachers to consider more humanizing possibilities for university
methods courses. By refusing the individual/social and cognitive/affective discursive bina-
ries, Evans, Morgan, and Tsatsaroni (2006) make a postmodern ideological move to
reconceptualize the relationship between the student and mathematics. Opening up the
students’ classroom experience to acknowledge the multiplicity of discursive positionings
inherent in the human experience extends the intellectual capital available to the mathemat-
ics teacher. The teacher, then, can create a classroom environment conducive to developing a
variety of humanizing intelligences that are not limited to mathematics. And Pais (2011)
makes a postmodern linguistic move to displace the binary of dominant mathematics/
ethnomathematics. This displacement opens the possibility of redefining all mathematics
52 D.W. Stinson, E.C. Bullock

as ethnomathematics—after all, each “classification” of mathematics, in all its wonder, still

remains, like everything else, a set of human practices grounded in the material world we
inhabit (Ernest, 1998, p. xii). Redefining mathematics as such transforms the field of
mathematicians to include both the academic in her classroom and the artisan in her atelier.
In sum, we claim that each of the aforementioned projects is critically disruptive of the
dehumanizing status quo, while simultaneously motivating a space of “not-ever-knowing.”
In other words, in the end, each project exemplifies the humanizing praxis of the critical and
the radical uncertainty of the postmodern as each researcher disrupts and does something in
her or his “not-ever of knowing.”

5 Closing thoughts

Throughout this article, we have attempted to illustrate the value and possibilities of the
synergistic hybrid space of critical postmodern theory based upon our current understand-
ings of the humanizing praxis of the critical and the radical uncertainty of the postmodern.
We believe theoretical perspective—claimed or not, articulated or not—determines not only
how a researcher understands the world and what questions might be explored but also the
methods of data collection, analysis, and representation9 (Lerman, Xu & Tsatsaroni, 2002).
All research is value-laden (Lather, 1991): but too often mathematics—positioned as an
asocial, ahistorical, and apolitical discipline (Ernest, 1998)—has manifested mathematics
education research that posits itself to be somehow atheoretical (Martin, Gholson & Leo-
nard, 2010). Nevertheless, removing mention of theory from mathematics education re-
search does not absolve the researcher of theoretical responsibilities or the subsequent
consequences of her or his research. Mathematics education research is not an innocent
science that exists outside of socio-cultural, -historical, and -political discourses (Gutiérrez,
2010). Therefore, we challenge mathematics education researchers to claim (and articulate)
their own theoretical space—pure or hybrid—that might activate a praxis of uncertainty
within their research passions as well as inspire those passions not yet known.

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Tony Brown and Margaret Walshaw, guest editors of this
special issue, and the reviewers for their close readings, critiques, and suggestions on earlier drafts of this
article. Contributions from both authors were equal.

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