“Kind of interrupting”: teachers of young children understanding mathematics learning and linguistic diversity

Abstract

This article examines the shared experiences and understandings teachers draw on to teach children with an awareness of linguistic diversity. To do so, we analyzed interviews from Turkey and the United States and drew on philosophical hermeneutics as a way to develop a disruptive understanding of teachers’ views regarding the role of languages in mathematics learning. We pose that teachers’ perspectives about languages and children’s ability to learn are challenged when there is an interruption, an event that fails to reflect the normative linguistic practices of hegemonic groups. We found teachers’ understandings fluctuate as part of an organic sense-making process of events in their classrooms, portraying perspectives such as multilingual students’ ability to learn, assumptions which limit expectations for children’s learning, the ability of mathematics to be experienced as its own mode of communication, as well as a willingness to effectively teach children.