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Summary
"The book deals with important and far-reaching issues in a way that is original, stimulating, and very accessible; it succeeds in linking widely divergent fields of study--math education and cultural studies--in a way that provokes fresh questions and rethinking of received ideas. A considerable strength of this book is that it's a lively, engaging work, at once playful and serious. While it is theoretically sophisticated, it is not freighted with jargon and pretentious rhetoric." -- Paul Farber, Western Michigan University
This groundbreaking book analyzes contemporary education discourse in the light of curriculum politics and popular culture, using sources ranging from academic scholarship to popular magazines, music video, film and television game shows. Mathematics is used as an "extreme case,"since it is a discipline so easily accepted as separable from politics, ethics or the social construction of knowledge. Appelbaum's juxtaposition of popular culture, public debate and professional practice enables an examination of the production and mediation of "common sense" distinctions between school mathematics and the world outside of schools. Terrain ordinarily displaced or excluded by traditional education literature becomes the pendulum for a new conversation which merges research and practice while discarding preconceived categories of understanding.
The book also serves as an entertaining introduction to emerging theories in cultural studies, progressively illustrating the uses of discourse analysis for comprehending ideology, the implications of power/knowledge links, professional practice as a technology of power, and curriculum as at once commodities and cultural resources. In this way, Appelbaum effectively reveals a direction for teachers, students and researchers to cooperatively form a community attentive to the politics of curriculum and popular culture.
"There is a wonderful combination of critical theory and sources drawn from popular culture. The approach is lively, while at the same time insightful. The book is an academic page-turner. Provocative and groundbreaking, this book opens up a significant line of inquiry for mathematics education--an important contribution to the field." -- Eugene F. Provenzo Jr., University of Miami
Peter M. Appelbaum is Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the William Paterson College of New Jersey.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
0. Introduction
Opening
Why is this Chapter 0?
The Prospectus
Mass Culture and Critical Pedagogy
Introduction
Power!
Reading Popular Culture
1. The Best Teacher in America
Everything Depends on the Teacher
The Teacher as Myth
Teacher as Signifier
Teacher as Hero
Escalante: The Best Teacher in America
Unraveling the Myth
Mathematics Teacher
Why Does Everything Depend on the Teacher?
2. Ezekiel Saw the Wheel: Problem Solving on and Off TV
The Opposition of Method and Content
Precedent: Professional Knowledge Overrides Teacher Personality
Teachers as Epistemological Metaphors
Philosophies of Mathematics Hide the Social
Pedagogy and Popular Culture
Game Shows Hit the Jackpot
Games and Schools
Probability and Profit
Problems and Problem Solving
Imitators and Echoes
Numbers and Money
The Transformation of Problem Solving
3. Gender and the Construction of Social Problems
Gender as a Social Problem
Gender and Sex
A Political Context
Liberal Feminist Research: A Professional Context
Gender as News
Coda
-1. Consumer Culture: Power and the Identity Politics of Mathematics Education
