Patterns of Participation in the Mathematics Classroom

This paper first postulates the existence of co-constructed patterns of participation in the classroom and then documents one such pattern of participation: Kikan-shido (instruction between desks), both as it is enacted and as it is perceived by the classroom participants. In the course of detailing the use of kikan-shido in three Australian classrooms, this paper addresses the relationship between practice, participation and learning, as exemplified by kikan-shido as a locally-enacted pattern of participation to which teacher and students subscribe and which teacher and student have agency to exploit and to shape, and in which teacher and students, are complicit (coconspirators). Acceptance of this point has implications for the research designs by which we study the activities occurring in classroom settings. [For complete proceedings, see ED489632.]