This thesis investigates how adult learners continuously negotiate their relationship with schoolroom mathematics through discourses akin to being ‘more’ or ‘less’ able to ‘do’ and ‘be’ mathematical. It argues that mathematical identities are politically and socially constructed, and that available forms of knowledge inscribe particular mathematical practices on the individual in the classroom. By paying attention to the precarious and contradictory productions of the self, and investigating the allure of undergoing a transformation of the self, I contribute to critical understandings of the psychic costs of re-engaging with learning mathematics as an adult learner. This analysis is a critical narrative inquiry of stories of adults (not)taming mathematics. As an iterative study into identity formation it puts theory to work in unusual ways. In bringing together internal and external processes (and the intersection of biography, aspiration and discursive practice), I unmask how participants underwent what Mendick (2005) calls “identity work”. Working with a Lacanian psychoanalytical through a Foucauldian tradition, I navigate the construction of selfhood during processes of reinvention as (non)mathematical subjects, experiencing ‘success’ (and alienation) through models of collaborative learning, in the contemporary mathematical classroom. The study examines the lived experiences of 11 adult learners using a range of qualitative methods. I actively seek the complexities within various types of provision (including adult education, further education, work-based learning, and community outreach programs) and the multiple forms of knowledge available (or not) through authoritarian discourses of education. Engaging a mobile epistemology, this thesis connects subject positions, techniques of power, psychic costs of reinventing the self, and how the processes of visceral embodiment of mathematics affects learning in the classroom. It argues that mathematical identities are discursively constructed, and the relationship between selfhood and ‘being’ and ‘doing’ mathematical-ness is told as much through narratives characterised by affection as by fear. Rather than provide answers or ‘best practice’ for the collaborative classroom, I conclude with an explanation of why I question common sense assumptions, such as that adult learners want to be placed in a hierarchical positions and judged as independent mathematical thinkers in class, and the practical implications for this in the classroom.

This research uses a case study approach to examine the learning experiences of mature non-specialist first year undergraduate university students studying mathematics as an ancillary subject. The challenges faced by such students taking mathematics as a subsidiary subject within their main degree have not been adequately addressed in the literature: this study seeks to address this gap. The research took place in a UK inner-city post-1992 university which has a very diverse student intake. A qualitative data set was generated from in-depth and focus group interviews of 22 mature students, the majority of whom were non-specialists taking mathematics as a required ancillary subject. An additional quantitative data set was derived from a questionnaire distributed to 250 students taking first year mathematics modules, either as an ancillary or as a specialism subject. A small number of mature students specialising in mathematics in both the interviews and the survey were included in order to compare the experiences and views of the both specialist and non-specialist groups. The Mixed Methods Research Design adopted combined results from the qualitative and quantitative analyses, and was accompanied by a post-structuralist theoretical framework which examines the discursive practices students were exposed to in relation to their construction of mathematics as a subject and their experiences of learning mathematics. The study shows that the major perceived factors that affect mature non-specialist students learning of mathematics include the pedagogical model that is used; the attitudes and beliefs of the learners; the support available to aid learning; and the prevalent discourses about the learning and perceptions of mathematics. These findings have a number of important implications for policy and practice for teaching mathematics to such students, for our understanding of student identities and for widening participation. The evidence from this study suggest that there should be a shift of government policy on access and financing for mature students; a review of mechanism of financial support for mature students; changes in the organisation and resourcing of small classes; a review of curriculum and pedagogy to fit the diverse background of learners; and the development of mathematics support provisions that are embedded in courses that require mathematical skills.

This study traces the professional learning of student teachers who have lived and studied outside the UK, and successfully applied to follow a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course in London to become teachers of mathematics in English schools. It draws upon Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and field to discuss how these student teachers adapt their capitals, as described in migration studies by Erel (2010) and Nowicka (2015) and how, during initial teacher training (ITT), they develop professional capitals for the teaching of mathematics (Nolan, 2012). Recent migration flows have led to a growth of diversity, as measured by countries of origin, in London and other cities around the world, resulting in what Vertovec (2006) has called superdiversity. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with 16 PGCE student teachers hailing from 13 different countries, this study explores the implications of superdiversity for the practices of training teachers. The focus of the research is on the complications of ‘bring[ing] off’ (MacLure, 2003:55) the embodied performance of becoming a teacher, and on how student teachers develop ‘enough’ (Blommaert and Varis, 2011:5) professional capital to pass the course. This leads to a reassessment of the category ‘highly skilled migrant’, which is used to define those who have academic qualifications for teaching from outside the UK. The study uses instead the term ‘highly qualified migrant’, to argue that a mathematical degree needs to be complemented by knowledge of the national mathematics curriculum, national pedagogies and local communicative resources. It shows how London can become an ‘escalator region’ (Fielding, 1992:1), as the student teachers achieve a working life that matches their academic qualifications, and also their own aspirations and those of their families, in the UK and elsewhere. In so doing, they become part of a teaching workforce that reflects the growing superdiversity of the region’s school pupils.