On alienation in the mathematics classroom

The goal of this article is to discuss a question that, curiously, has passed unaddressed in mathematics education research: the question of alienation in the mathematics classroom. In the first part, I bring out the conceptual structure of Marx's idea of alienation as it appears in Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and discuss four different senses of alienation. In the second part, I argue that two of the most influential models that have informed mathematics education in the 20th century, namely the transmissive and the progressive models, are both alienating. In the last section I discuss the possibilities of overcoming alienation through a reconceptualization of mathematics teaching and learning based on a cultural-historical communitarian ethic of solidarity and critical stance.