Chapter 8: Inscription, Narration and Diagrammatically Based Argumentation: Narrative Accounting Practices in Primary School Mathematics Lessons

My interest lies in the everyday situation of the primary school mathematics lesson. Of particular interest to me is how mathematical learning is made possible during social interaction. My research is hereby empirically delivered: my colleagues and I¹ observe mathematics lessons and videotape normal as well as experimental lessons. Using interpretive techniques, we reconstruct the way in which these regular or experimental lessons develop through interaction.

The perspective adopted here is a “situational” one: “My perspective is situational, meaning here a concern for what one individual can be alive to at a particular moment, this often involving a few other particular individuals and not necessarily restricted to the mutually monitored arena of a face-to-face gathering” (Goffman, 1974, p. 8). The concept of the “situation” refers here to a human social gathering, thus meaning a social situation like a “social event” or “social occasion.” It is characterized by this feature: individuals interact with one another and that by this a situation as a social one emerges. The focus is directed towards the “here and now” of a situation, on the exchange and matching of actions between those present, thereby creating the possibility of joint actions.