Proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education · Volume 1
Giulia Lisarelli
University of Pisa
⬇ Download PDFMathematics has been widely described as a gatekeeper discipline shaping students’ educational opportunities, yet less attention has been paid to how this role is experienced and narrated by students themselves. Drawing on interviews with 40 final-year upper secondary students, this study adopts a situational and narrative approach to explore how mathematics emerges as a gatekeeping mechanism in students’ retrospective narratives of upper secondary school choice within the Italian educational system, characterized by differentiated pathways. Findings illustrate how mathematics becomes meaningful in students’ accounts through interactions with significant others, as its gatekeeping function emerges within situated processes of meaning-making rather than being assumed in advance.
gatekeeperschool choicesituational perspective