Examining the Process of Identification in the Mathematics Classroom and the Role of Students’ Academic Communities

The primary purpose of this research was to provide insight into the identities students develop as they interact in a high school mathematics classroom. A normative divide developed which eventually split the classroom into two distinct academic factions: those who resisted the emerging local definition of what it meant to do mathematics and those who did not resist (i.e. complied or identified). A secondary purpose of this research was to understand the role of students’ academic communities in mathematics identity development. Student narratives helped uncover mathematical spaces outside the classroom that each developed their own unique definition of what it meant to do mathematics (i.e. normative identity). As a result, these spaces provided students with additional opportunities to identify with mathematics. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed, along with future possible lines of research.