Chapter 4: Student Resistance in a Fifth-Grade Mathematics Class

Mathematical spaces in classrooms in the United States often confine young people to activities that are devoid of connections to their real social worlds. Relationships between students and teachers are developed from adult-centric views that frame learning as an approximation to adult experience (Andrade, 1994; Cahan, Mechling, Sutton-Smith, & White, 1993). A lack of attention to children’s lives can create spaces that suppress student learning. Students of minority or low socioeconomic status are especially vulnerable because they are in educational spaces for extended periods of time with little or no connection to their communities (Trueba, 1998). In an effort to maintain engagement, some students create resistant behavioral forms (Giroux, 1992). The purpose of this study was to observe and analyze how one group of fifth-grade students used resistance in a mathematics classroom.