Emerging Perspectives on Gesture and Embodiment in Mathematics

A Volume in International Perspectives on Mathematics Education- Cognition Equity & SocietySeries Editor Bharath Sriraman The University of Montana and Lyn English QueenslandUniversity of TechnologyThe purpose of the book is to consider embodiment as it applies to mathematical thinking and tolink mathematics education research to recent work in gesture studies cognitive linguistics andthe theory of embodied cognition. Just as in past decades mathematics education experienced aturn to the social in which socio-cultural factors were explored in recent years there has been anascent turn to the body. An increasing number of researchers and theorists in mathematics education have become interested in thefact that although mathematics may be socially constructed this construction is not arbitrary or unconstrained but rather is rooted inand shaped by the body. All those who engage with mathematics whether at an elementary or advanced level share the same basic biologicaland cognitive capabilities as well as certain common physical experiences that come with being humans living in a materialworld. In addition the doing and communicating of mathematics is never a purely intellectual activity: it involves a wide range ofbodily actions from committing inscriptions to paper or whiteboard to speaking listening gesturing and gazing. This volume willpresent recent research on gesture and mathematics within a framework that addresses several levels of mathematical developmentincluding early number sense high-school topics and university-level concepts.The overall goal for the volume is to acknowledge the multimodal nature of mathematicalknowing and to contribute to the creation of a model of the interactions and mutual influencesof bodily motion spatial thinking gesture speech and external inscriptions on mathematicalthinking communication and learning. The intended audience is researchers andtheorists in mathematics education as well as graduate students in the field.