Unmasking the Gods: Clarifying Social Construction Theses in

Mathematics Education
Jagdish Madnani
Sahyadri School, Pune, India

The phrase ‘social construction’ has raised hackles in aca- ter obituary and cast about for a newer, fresher idea (or
demic debates and has rapidly gained currency among theo- phrase) if its use is not warranted in particular areas of
rists of all stripes. Unfortunately, as almost always hap- study. At one level this might seem like a trivial, purely lin-
pens, once a phrase is used too often, it begins to lose its guistic enterprise, since one is apparently arguing about ‘just
impact and its original meaning-in-use. One of the goals a phrase’. It will be my endeavor to try to show how ‘just
of this paper is to reinvigorate this metaphor by trying to a phrase’ can significantly muddle the conversation, spe-
look at some of the roles it has played in the various de- cifically in the case of mathematics education, due to cer-
bates. Another goal is to try to clear the air regarding its tain previously developed ideas in the discipline of math-
use in mathematics. Although mathematical development ematics that have the potential of causing theorists and prac-
is often seen as dialogical and historically contingent, it is titioners to talk past each other.
a discipline that hides its nature under a monological mask
that claims to be fixed, monolithic and eternally true. By So what is implied in the use of the phrase ‘social con-
explaining the use of this phrase in recent writing relating struction’? By referring to its usage in different contexts
to the philosophy of mathematics and mathematics educa- and debates (for example, the debate around the social con-
tion, I hope to re-illuminate the contingent nature of the struction of gender), Hacking (1999) is very illuminating in
discipline and the mathematics classroom trying to trace a pattern of its implied meanings. One of the
main reasons for its usage is for the purpose of “raising
“In mathematical construction we are, as it were, gods.” – consciousness” (p. 6), by indicating that the ‘object’ that is
Salomon Maimon under consideration is not inevitable:

Social construction work is critical of the status quo. So-

cial constructionists about X tend to hold that:
Second Life for a Dying Metaphor
1. X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X,
The idea of social construction is everywhere. As Hacking or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature
(1999) indicates lucidly, this idea has proliferated and repli- of things; it is not inevitable.
cated itself to the extent that if it were like cancerous cells,
“death would be immediate” (p. 3). Without trying to fix Very often they go further, and argue that:
the meaning of this phrase, he advises us that it might be 2. X is quite bad as it is.
useful to question the overall purpose of using ‘social con-
struction’ as a prefix, in the first place, in the various de- 3. We would be much better off if X were done away with,
bates. In other words, by understanding its usage in the or at least radically transformed.
various debates, we might be better placed to evaluate its
implications when it arises in a different field. In trying to A thesis of type (1) is the starting point: the existence or
answer this question, we might also be able to write a bet- character of X is not determined by the nature of things. X
20 Proceedings of epiSTEME 3

is not inevitable. X was brought into existence or shaped by to be socially constructed? And what is achieved by insert-
social events, forces, history, all of which could have been ing the prefix ‘social construction’? Surely, quarks are not
different. Many social construction theses at once advance human kinds and thus the phenomenon of looping would
to (2) and (3), but they need not do so. One may realize that not be applicable here: if quarks were classified in some
something, which seems inevitable in the present state of other way, it would not make any difference, as far as we
things, was not inevitable, and yet is not thereby a bad thing. know to the quarks itself (themselves!). And quite clearly,
But most people who use the social construction idea en- quarks would not exist without a social organization of
thusiastically want to criticize, change, or destroy some X physicists, particle accelerators and so on. According to
that they dislike in the established order of things. (p. 7) Hacking, this is not the reason for prefixing ‘social con-
struction’ before quarks, in Pickering’s thesis. It is to indi-
What is achieved by such rising of consciousness? Hack- cate that there could have been many possible trajectories
ing believes that in some cases it can lead to liberation, by to high-energy physics, and one of those trajectories led to
denying inevitability. For example, what could a thesis titled the ‘construction’ of quarks. One objective in using the
“The Social Construction of Woman Refugees” (Moussa, phrase ‘social construction’ here would be to show that the
1992, as cited in Hacking, 1999) possibly hope to achieve path to the development of the idea of quarks was not unique,
when it is quite clear that women refugees are the product that there could have been many different successful phys-
of social forces, and almost no one would claim that the ics that could have evolved, and not all of these would have
existence of women who have to flee their countries is an necessarily given birth to quarks. Thus, the overall aim of
agreeable situation? What is gained by prefixing the thesis this thesis is to deny inevitability and affirm contingency of
with “The Social Construction of…”? Hacking claims that the object under consideration – in this case, quarks.
it is the idea or the category of ‘women refugees’, which is
socially constructed. It is not the actual women under con- Quite clearly, these examples are from opposite ends of the
sideration, who are obviously the result of social forces spectrum: in one case a particular type of human kind (the
working on them and which is why they choose to or are category ‘woman refugee’) is being constructed and in the
forced to flee, but it’s the creation or ‘construction’ of this other case the thesis concerns an object from the physical
classification that is at issue here. But why is the construc- sciences (quarks). The contentious issues in the latter case
tion of this category problematic? Hacking claims that such have to do with contingency, metaphysical nominalism and
ideas or classifications are of the interactive kind. In other the stability of the ‘object’ under consideration used as evi-
words, such categorizations interact with the actual per- dence of its inevitability. The context within which the phrase
sons being categorized, who in turn interact with the cat- ‘social construction’ is used, matters heavily and thus it
egorization itself: becomes important to be clear about what exactly is claimed
People of these kinds can become aware that they are clas- to be socially constructed: is it a kind of person, or is it an
sified as such. They can make tacit or even explicit choices, object that due to the reasons mentioned above seems to be
adapt or adopt ways of living so as to fit or get away from inevitable, but maybe on closer consideration is not? These
the very classification that may be applied to them. These are important questions to answer before one takes posi-
very choices, adaptations or adoptions have consequences tions in any debate around social construction, although it
for the very group, for the kind of people that is invoked. is clear that a clear binary distinction between an idea and
The result may be particularly strong interactions. What
the object it refers to may not be possible, or at any rate the
was known about people of a kind may become false be-
cause people of that kind have changed in virtue of what
subject of yet another debate! And yet, for the purpose of
they believe about themselves. I have called this phenom- saying something meaningful about social construction the-
enon the looping effect of human kinds (Hacking, 1999, ses, an artificial distinction is made by Hacking between
emphases original). ‘things-in-the-world’, or ‘objects’ (such as people, prac-
tices, actions and experiences among others), ‘ideas’ (in-
In this sense, it is possible for the actual women (or those cluding conceptions, beliefs, theories and for our purposes,
involved with them) to realize the contingent nature of their classification or categorization of people, although groups
classification and what that entails. The first step in politi- of such classified people would come under ‘objects’), and
cizing the situation of women refugees in order to bring ‘elevator’ words (such blatantly circularly defined words
about a transformation in their situation (if indeed that is the as truth, reality, knowledge, facts) (Hacking, 1999, pp. 21-
purpose) would be to realize the contingent, historical, non- 23). While there is an awareness of considerable slippage in
essential nature of their classification itself. this kind of artificial category-making, Hacking coins these
labels mainly to bring out the distinction between theses
In the case of the thesis “The Social Construction of Quarks”
that deal with, for example, ‘woman refugees’ on the one
(Pickering, 1986, as cited in Hacking, 1999), what is claimed
 Unmasking the Gods: Clarifying Social Construction Theses in Mathematics Education 21

hand and ‘quarks’ on the other – in one case the thesis is Hacking (1999) says:
dealing with the category (or idea), and in the other, it is If we left “constructivism” to mathematics, we would avoid
about an object. the confusion invited by a title such as Social
Constructivism as a Philosophy of Mathematics (Ernest,
Mathematical Constructivism 1998), which suggests, to anyone who knows anything
about mathematical constructivism, something like a social
Within the philosophy of mathematics, Constructivism is a variant of Brouwer’s program (a rather incoherent idea). It
school of thought that aserts that it is necessary to find (or would have been better, I think, to speak of social con-
construct) a mathematical object in order to prove that it structionism as a philosophy of mathematics, a philoso-
phy that would presumbly maintain that in some sense
exists. Incidentally, this school of thought has linkages to
mathematical objects, such as numbers, and mathematical
another school of thought called Intutionism (a variant of facts-theorems are social constructs. That would be analo-
Kant’s intuitions of space and time), which itself is histori- gous to constructionism about the natural sciences, al-
cally associated with mathematicians like Brouwer and though the arguments would presumably be different. (p.
Bishop. For constructivists, the commonly used indirect 48)
proof (reductio ad absurdum), where one asumes that an
object does not exist, and then derives a contradiction from Regardless of such quibbling, what is the major interpreta-
that assumption by a series of logically connected steps, tion of the phrase ‘social constructivism’ within the realm
thus proving the existence of the object, is not considered of mathematics? It is worth quoting Ernest (2004):
valid. A constructive proof, in contrast, is a method of Social Constructivism claims that the concepts, definitions,
proof that clearly demonstrates the existence of a math- and rules of mathematics (including rules of truth and proof)
ematical object by creating or providing a clear method for were invented and evolved over millennia. Thus mathemati-
cal knowledge is based on contingency, due to its histori-
creating such an object. Another noteworthy aspect of con-
cal development and the inevitable impact of external forces
structive mathematics is its denouncement of the Law of on the resourcing and direction of mathematics. (p. 25)
the Excluded Middle, which simply states that a proposi-
tion is either true or false-there is no middle ground, even if
Modern Conception of Proof – Historical
one does not at present know the truth-value. Quite clearly,
the methods adopted by this school have been controver- Accident?
sial:
One might well ask – are there aspects within the discipline
Traditionally, mathematicians have been suspicious, if not itself that might be considered, at large, to be inevitable, but
downright antagonistic, towards mathematical
which on closer examination turn out to be the result of
constructivism, largely because of the limitations that it
some historical accident? In a sense, without getting into
poses for constructive analysis. These views were force-
fully expressed by David Hilbert in 1928 when he wrote in the timeless and slippery debate between Platonic and hu-
Die Grundlagen der Mathematik, “Taking the principle of manistic conceptions of mathematical objects, can one find
excluded middle from the mathematician would be the same, something central and meaningful within the field of math-
say, as proscribing the telescope to the astronomer or to ematics that need not have been the way it is, and yet has
the boxer the use of his fists”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ been elevated to the status of inevitable and ahistoric?
Constructivism_(mathematics))
Hacking (2002) considers the modern conception of proof
And here is the redoubtable Hardy (1993): in mathematics and how one can trace its origins in the
Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one seventeenth century. Unlike Euclidean proofs which seemed
of a mathematician’s finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit to rely at least to some extent on the content of the proofs
than any chess gambit: a chess player may offer the sacri- (the actual geometrical entities and their relationships) and
fice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers not on the form, or grammar of the proof itself, Hacking
the game. (p.34)
(2002) shows how our modern conception of mathemati-
It is important to keep in mind the full import of the limita- cal proof is very different and actually resembles Leibniz’s
tions that the constructivist school imposes on mathemati- ideas during the seventeenth century:
cians and the hostility that this school of thought faces from In saying that Leibniz knew what a proof is, I mean that he
some mathematicians if one is to understand the bewilder- anticipated in some detail the conception of proof that has
ment that a phrase such as ‘social construction’ might evince become dominant in our century…A proof, thought Leibniz,
from the community of mathematicians. It is possible that is valid in virtue of its form, not its content. It is a sequence
of sentences beginning with identities and proceeding by
at least a part of this confusion that might be caused by
a finite number of steps of logic and rules of definitional
attaching the prefix ‘social’ in front of ‘constructivism’. As substitution to the theorem proved. (p. 201)
22 Proceedings of epiSTEME 3

Interestingly, according to Hacking (2002), it was a cre- School Mathematics as a Social Construc-
ation of Descartes, analytic geometry, which in a sense, by tion
stripping geometry of its content, aided, unintentionally per-
haps, Leibniz’s conception of proof. It is also interesting According to Popkewitz (2002), there is little or no con-
that these two great figures of mathematics had very dif- nection between academic disciplines and their school ava-
ferent ideas about the relationship between truth and proof: tars, due to the transmogrification, or “alchemy” that oc-
“Leibniz thought that truth is constituted by proof. Descartes curs when the knowledge of an academic discipline moves
thought proof irrelevant to truth” (Hacking, 2002, p. 204). to school. Although this alchemy is an unavoidable fact of
Another very important historical event that was respon- schooling, Popkewitz (2002) claims:
sible for the emergence of this new formulation of proof In mathematics education, the alchemic transformation can
was the epistemological upheaval that was taking place in be explored further. On the surface, the discussion is about
science in the seventeenth century. The realization that the teaching children about mathematics. Teacher education
new science was no longer “Aristotelian knowledge or research focuses on the content and structure of teachers’
scientia” (Hacking, 2002, p. 211), caused a vacuum, and in knowledge, such as learning about the development of
a sense, Leibniz’s conception of formal proof which was children’s mathematical thinking and problem solving. Best
detached from ‘eternal truths,’ moved to fill the empty space practices in instruction, for example, are to teach problem
that was largely created by the conditions prevalent at that solving in algebra and geometry and children’s learning
multiple solutions in making conjectures and justifications.
time. In other words, not only did Leibniz’s conception of
The evidence of research is the identification of children’s
proof not exist in any meaningful way before the seven- thinking processes or the teacher’s pedagogical content
teenth century, it was contingent on this vacuum that was knowledge that furthers the problem solving. However, the
created. Adding weight to this thesis is Popkewitz (2004): problem solving of mathematics education is a fiction of
Hacking argues that mathematics embodies different ways the alchemy. The problem solving of mathematics is not
of thinking about and creating new objects. Each style of some universal system of rules about conjectures and jus-
reasoning in mathematics, Hacking continues, opens up tification but an academic field of cultural practices con-
different objects for scrutiny and provides classificatory cerning norms of participation, truth, and recognition that
schemes by which lives are experienced, truths authenti- change over time (see, e.g., Van Bendegem, 1996). The re-
cated, and futures chosen…The various styles of reason- search on mathematics education focuses on psychologi-
ing introduce different registers of debates about the onto- cal theories of problem solving and the management prac-
logical status of the objects “seen” as true. Approaching tices related to the classroom of children’s learning. The
science and mathematics as fields of cultural practices that principles selected as mathematics concepts conform and
construct their objects and truth statements, he argues, is translate into the expectations of pedagogy as studies of
a way out of the controversies that divide philosophy and children’s thinking. The evidence of learning mathematics
education into realist and anti-realist camps. It is a way to is formed through the lenses of cognitive psychology, no-
overcome the unproductive separation of epistemology and tions of child growth and development, and sometimes
ontology and the division between subjectivist and objec- social-psychological concepts, such as situated learning.
tivist worldviews. (p. 20, original emphases) Expected teacher performance in mathematics education is
to develop instruction that captures children’s intuitive un-
Thus the modern conception of proof that is now formal- derstanding of conventional mathematics concepts. (p. 263)
ized and engraved on mathematics has a memory. It is true
that the necessary relationship between axioms and theo- Additionally, Popkewitz (2002) also claims that as disci-
rems is not contingent, yet any particular style of reasoning plinary knowledge moves into schools, it crystallizes, thus
in mathematics does have a contingent, historical basis – implying a fixed, unalterable, body of knowledge. Although
and thus in Hacking’s (1999) terms, as mentioned above, mathematics as a discipline is characterized as a cultural
the modern conception of mathematical proof is socially practice that is related to the changing norms and practices
constructed. Ernest (2004) has a very similar conception: of the community of mathematicians, in reform documents,
mathematics is assumed to be stable and unchanging. As
Much of mathematics follows by logical necessity from its
assumptions and adopted rules of reasoning, just as moves Popkewitz (2004) suggests, maintaining this conception of
do in a game of chess. Once a set of axioms and rules has mathematics allows for the ‘proper’ administration of the
been chosen (e.g., Peano’s axioms or those of group theory), child in the classroom, through associated devices and peda-
many unexpected results await the research mathematician. gogical ‘eyes’. The politics of reform and indeed of school-
This does not contradict the skeptical epistemology of ing in general, combine with psychological and social in-
social constructivism for none of the rules of reasoning scriptions to ‘create’ a particular kind of school mathemat-
and logic in mathematics are themselves absolute. (p. 25) ics with its own logic and driving force, not entirely con-
gruent with the practices and driving force of the academic
 Unmasking the Gods: Clarifying Social Construction Theses in Mathematics Education 23

discipline itself. In this sense, mathematics in schools can ture, Valero (2004) finds the construction of a ‘fictional’
be considered to be socially constructed. cognitive student, almost devoid of any socio-cultural con-
text:
In fact, it is through “inscription devices”, as claimed by
If I were asked to draw the “reform student” I would paint
Popkewitz (2004), that the child in the mathematics class- a being that looks like an outer-space visitor, with a big
room is “fabricated” too. One example of an “inscription head, probably a little heart, and a tiny chunk of body. That
device” propagated through standards-based reform docu- being would be mainly alone and mostly talk about math-
ments in the US is the ‘problem-solving child’. Pedagogical ematics learning, and would see the world through his
research in mathematics education is not entirely a descrip- school mathematical experience. That would be a “schizo-
tion of classroom practices or even about the content of being” since she has a clearly divided self – one that has to
mathematics. It plays a role in actually constructing or ‘fab- do with mathematics and the other that has to do with
ricating’ certain human kinds (Hacking, 1999, 2002) upon other unrelated things. (p. 40)
whom the gaze of the researcher is then directed, in order From these perspectives, it is clear that the child in the
to reveal the subject as transparent. “Fabrication directs mathematics classroom is ‘socially constructed’ as a pre-
attention to how linguistic categories and distinctions of dominantly cognitive, moral, future adult citizen of a demo-
educational research are both fictions and creators of cratic state and the mathematics that she is exposed to is an
“things”. As linguists say, language functions simultaneously alchemic version of disciplinary mathematics, one that is
to construe and to construct” (Popkewitz, 2004, p. 13). more amenable to psychological and social “inscriptions”.
Just as in the case of the ‘woman refugee’ (Hacking, 1999), Quite clearly, this is an example of a fiction or a fabrication,
the newly minted ‘problem-solving child’ is an interactive not at all an inevitable description of the student in the math-
kind of categorization. In other words, the actual, real flesh ematics classroom.
and blood child who is considered to fall within that cat-
egory is then in an interactive relationship with the ‘idea’ of In conclusion, I believe that considering the discipline of
this child and the role of the teacher/education researcher is mathematics as socially constructed has some implications
to save or “rescue” the child from being one who “is left for the teaching of mathematics in schools. In other words,
behind” (Popkewitz, 2004). By ‘constructing’ such a cat- if mathematics is not looked at as a fixed, eternal, and dis-
egory, it becomes possible to measure, govern and admin- embodied collection of truths and methods, but rather as a
ister the mathematical ‘well being’ of children in the class- socially situated and historically contingent cultural prac-
room who fall (or indeed are made to fall) under such a tice, there is a possibility that a libratory, humanistic ap-
category. Indeed, according to Popkewitz (2004), it is not proach to mathematics, one that is aware of the historical
only the mathematical well being that is the focus of such and social forces that have shaped the discipline, could help
inscriptions – ethical and political considerations having to to negotiate the terrain in the classroom without a sense of
do with the creation of ‘proper’ citizens in an ever-chang- foreboding. After all, if the gods have been unmasked and
ing world is a very important aspect of the ‘translation’ that shown to be all too human, there is a possibility that the
the pedagogical ‘eye’ of psychology plays in transmogrifying fear and loathing that surrounds this discipline could be
mathematics into mathematics education. While carefully mitigated and all students, not just the privileged, can par-
reviewing certain reform documents in the US, Popkewitz take of its offerings.
(2004) looks askance at the use of phrases such as “dis-
course communities of learning”, which although at first References
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24 Proceedings of epiSTEME 3

Cambridge University Press. American Educational Research Journal, 41(1), 3-34.

Popkewitz, T. (2002). How the alchemy makes inquiry, Valero, P. (2004). Postmodernism as an attitude of critique
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