Investigating inclusion and disability in teaching staff and pupil discourses in mainstream primary mathematics classrooms in the UK: the case of visual impairment

Stylianidou, Angeliki (2021) Investigating inclusion and disability in teaching staff and pupil discourses in mainstream primary mathematics classrooms in the UK: the case of visual impairment. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This study investigates inclusion and disability in the discourses of teaching staff and pupils in British mainstream primary mathematics classrooms with visually impaired (VI) pupils, first in an exploratory phase and then in an experimental phase. The study’s theoretical underpinnings are sociocultural: Vygotskian sociocultural theory of learning, with particular emphasis on the notion of mediation; and, the social model of disability. Pertinent role in the study’s theoretical framework also plays the theory of embodied cognition. The Vygotskian sociocultural theory of learning affords looking at how the semiotic, the material and the sensory tools that are used in the classroom mediate the mathematical learning of visually impaired pupils and consequently affect the inclusion and enabling of these pupils. The theory of embodied cognition affords a closer look at the construction and expression of mathematical meaning. The social model of disability underpins the study’s take on disability as socially constructed. Data collection was conducted in four primary mathematics classrooms in four mainstream schools in Norfolk through: classroom observations; individual interviews with class teachers, teaching assistants and pupils; focussed-group interviews with pupils; written transcripts of the class teachers’ contributions in the design of the three experimental lessons; photographs of the pupils’ work in the three experimental lessons; and, pupils’ evaluation forms of the experimental lesson in two classes. Data analysis is presented under three themes: the role of speech and gesturing in the mathematical learning of visually impaired pupils; the intertwinement of digital and physical resources in the mathematical learning of visually impaired pupils; and, the mathematical contributions of visually impaired pupils in an inclusive primary classroom and the responses of teaching staff and sighted pupils to these contributions. The study concludes with a discussion of theoretical and methodological implications for research in this area as well as implications for policy and practice.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	30 May 2022 12:49
Last Modified:	30 May 2022 12:49
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/85246
DOI:

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