Word problems and make-believe: Using frame analysis and ethnomethodology to explore aspects of the culture of schooling

Q3 Social Sciences

Journal of Pedagogy Pub Date : 2017-12-01 DOI:10.1515/jped-2017-0010

L. Benincasa

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract The paper applies Goffman’s frame analysis and ethnomethodology to student performance on mathematical word problems. In educational research, frame analysis has usually been limited to primary frames. Instead, in this paper I focus on the kind of secondary frame that Goffman calls ‘utilitarian make-believe’. The data consist of a fragment of verbal interaction between a teacher and a 12-year-old pupil during an oral mathematics exam. By evoking the idea of ‘as-ifness’, word problems introduce pupils to a make-believe world. The text consists only of ‘filler words’ because what really matters are the figures. Word problems and possibly other aspects of schooling can be interpreted in terms of a utilitarian make-believe key. Readiness to adopt this make-believe frame when required may be the difference between school success and failure. I argue that maths achievement takes more than just ‘being good with numbers’. It is a joint enterprise of people interacting within a culturally-shaped setting, organized so as to make some phenomena stand out rather than others. Finally, I argue that ‘word problems and possibly other ‘school genres’ could be added to the list of utilitarian make-believe frames provided by Goffman.

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字词问题与虚构:运用框架分析与族群方法学探讨学校教育文化的各个方面

摘要本文运用戈夫曼的框架分析法和民族方法学对学生在数学应用题上的表现进行研究。在教育研究中，框架分析通常局限于初级框架。相反，在本文中，我关注的是Goffman称之为“功利主义的假装”的第二框架。这些数据包括一名老师和一名12岁学生在数学口语考试中口头交流的片段。通过唤起“as-ifness”的概念，字谜题将学生带入一个虚构的世界。文中只有“填充词”，因为真正重要的是数字。文字问题和学校教育的其他方面都可以用一把实用的假想钥匙来解释。在需要的时候，是否准备好采用这种假想的框架可能是学校成功与失败的区别。我认为数学成绩不仅仅需要“擅长数字”。它是人们在文化塑造的环境中相互作用的共同事业，组织起来是为了使某些现象脱颖而出，而不是其他现象。最后，我认为“文字问题”和其他可能的“学校类型”可以添加到Goffman提供的功利主义虚构框架列表中。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Pedagogy Social Sciences-Education

CiteScore

1.10

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

20 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Pedagogy (JoP) publishes outstanding educational research from a wide range of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical traditions. Diverse perspectives, critiques, and theories related to pedagogy – broadly conceptualized as intentional and political teaching and learning across many spaces, disciplines, and discourses – are welcome, from authors seeking a critical, international audience for their work. All manuscripts of sufficient complexity and rigor will be given full review. In particular, JoP seeks to publish scholarship that is critical of oppressive systems and the ways in which traditional and/or “commonsensical” pedagogical practices function to reproduce oppressive conditions and outcomes. Scholarship focused on macro, micro and meso level educational phenomena are welcome. JoP encourages authors to analyse and create alternative spaces within which such phenomena impact on and influence pedagogical practice in many different ways, from classrooms to forms of public pedagogy, and the myriad spaces in between. Manuscripts should be written for a broad, diverse, international audience of either researchers and/or practitioners. Accepted manuscripts will be available free to the public through JoP’s open-access policies, as well as featured in Elsevier''s Scopus indexing service, ERIC, and others.

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