1st Edition

Geometry as Objective Science in Elementary School Classrooms Mathematics in the Flesh

By Wolff-Michael Roth Copyright 2011
312 Pages 76 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

312 Pages 76 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

312 Pages 76 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This study examines the origins of geometry in and out of the intuitively given everyday lifeworlds of children in a second-grade mathematics class. These lifeworlds, though pre-geometric, are not without model objects that denote and come to anchor geometric idealities that they will understand at later points in their lives. Roth's analyses explain how geometry, an objective... Read more

Introduction: Of Hands, Flesh, and Mind  A. Toward a Theory of Mathematics in the Flesh  Introduction to Part A.  1. What Makes a Cube a Cube? A Phenomenological Overture  2. From Intellectualist Metaphysics to Embodiment Epistemologies  3. Material Life as the Organizing Principle of Knowing  B. Stories of Mathematics in the Flesh  Introduction to Part B.  4. The Flesh, Distractions, and Mathematics  5. Coordinating Touch and Gaze: Re/Constructing a Mystery Object  6. Emergence of Measurement as the Realization of Geometry  7. Doing Time in Mathematical Praxis  C. Emergence of Geometry – An Objective Science  Introduction to Part C.  8. Ethno-methods of Sorting Geometrically  9. Reproducing Geometry as Objective Science  10. Rethinking Mathematical Conceptions.  Epilogue: From the Flesh to Society in the Mind

Biography

Wolff-Michael Roth is Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria. He researches knowing and learning related to mathematics and science across the entire life span. His recent publications include Language, Learning, Context (Routledge, 2010), Science Education from People for People (Ed., Routledge, 2010), and Re/Structuring Science Education (Ed., Springer, 2010).