The Genesis of Routines Mathematical Discourses on the Equal Sign and Variable

Abstract

This study explores high school students’ and their mathematics teachers’ mathematical discourses on the equal sign and variables in the classroom context. The participants in this case study were ninth-graders and their mathematics teacher. The data were analyzed in terms of participants’ routines, specifically ritual and explorative routines in the classroom context, through a commognitive perspective. Results indicate that teacher discourse governed process-based routines that have roots in elementary grades. Students focused more on operational approaches instead of algebraic reasoning while solving equations, and this finding conveys challenges in constructing variables.