Discursive psychology as an alternative perspective on mathematics teacher knowledge

Research on mathematics teacher knowledge, including work on mathematical knowledge for teaching, draws heavily on Shulman’s categories of teacher knowledge. These categories have been adopted, developed and modified by mathematics education researchers. This approach has led to some valuable insights. In this paper, I draw on discursive psychology to develop a critique of this work. This critique highlights some of the unstated assumptions of much research inspired by Shulman’s work, including, in particular, a representational view of knowledge and argues that the resulting theories do not reflect the discourses of knowledge that arise in mathematics classrooms. These ideas are illustrated with discussion of two examples, with the aim of showing how discursive psychology can offer an alternative perspective.