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Mathematics-specific learning difficulties and disabilities (MLD) have received increasing attention in scholarly research. In this study, we place MLD research in its wider context of risk societies by discussing the manufacturing of MLD as a risk. This framing of MLD builds on a certain idea of hope in how research could provide the means to better understand and support learners with MLD. We conduct a Foucault-informed analysis to understand how scholarly knowledge about MLD has been produced through discourses of risk and hope. Our material consists of 30 influential journal articles published in the three fields of MLD research: cognitive sciences, special education and mathematics education. Our study indicates that MLD has been predominantly conceptualised through a technico-scientific risk discourse that frames MLD as harmful for learners and societies alike; such risk discourse relies on a discourse of hope in scientific methods. We also analyse a social risk discourse that identifies risks in social exclusion and marginalisation of students with MLD, finding hope in inclusive learning environments. Based on our analysis, we propose that the mere conceptualisation of MLD has thoroughly revolved around discourses of current liminalities (risk) and enunciations of better futures (hope). However, what has been unexplored is the politics of such risk and hope discourses themselves. We propose a socio-politically oriented discourse of risk/hope as a way to reframe scientific knowledge production about MLD. This discourse identifies risks not in MLD itself but in how research manufactures MLD as a threat to both economic growth and student identities. Instead of asking research communities to mitigate the risk of MLD, we call for them to embrace it.

The combination of language policies, the global testing industry, and the role of STEMsubjects in school systems have been shown to undermine the inclusion of all pupils,especially with regard to language backgrounds. This lack of inclusion shows signs ofdeveloping into a point of systematic exclusion for those students. In this article we willconsider the language policies in two national contexts, the Swedish and the Luxem-bourgish ones, and specifically examine issues of in(ex)clusion in relation to multi-lingualism in STEM teaching. This study analyzes policy documents on (1) inclusion,(2)language use, and (3) STEM teaching at school in the two national contexts, using amethodology that builds on Popkewitzís (2013; 2014) approach to politics of schooling.Our results show, first, that different policies on language and multilingualism becomevisible in policy documents for primary school teaching in Sweden and Luxembourg.Secondly, this article discusses what impacts these policies may have on matters of inclu-sion, exclusion, or abjection in STEM teaching contexts at primary schools.

PURPOSE: In this paper, we explore and contrast the Swedish state and NGO arguments for initiating two changes in national educational degree objectives in Swedish teacher education: one regarding sex and cohabitation education, and the other regarding support for pupils with ʻneuropsychiatric difficultiesʼ such as autism and ADHD (here referred to as neurodivergent pupils).

APPROACH: Using critical policy analysis, we compare the arguments from the government as well as responding bodies for introducing the two objectives, with a focus on neurodivergent pupils.

RESULTS: Our findings suggest that discourses concerning sex and cohabitation education for all pupils and support for pupils with ʻneuropsychiatric difficultiesʼ respectively derive from different educational ideologies and reproduce different ideas about pupils as active citizens versus passive objects of interventions. The objective of sex and cohabitation education is framed within a norm critical discourse putting forward reflexivity and identity, and where pupils are active subjects to be involved in the process. In contrast, neurodivergence is framed within a deficit approach as neurobiological, individual impairment, and a special educational problem that should be managed by professionals. It is seen as a risk for school failure, where neurodivergent pupils are passive objects of professional discovery and support.

CONCLUSION: In a Swedish educational policy landscape, stressing the importance of educating pupils in line with ideas of children as right-bearers, our exploration illustrates how ʻall pupilsʼ versus neurodivergent pupils, within teacher education, are positioned as belonging to different categories of citizens: as active subjects of rights, versus passive subjects of care. This perception of neurodivergence, we argue, hampers progress towards embracing neurodivergence as a social category, and neurodivergent pupils as political subjects.

This article provides an opportunity to re-think traditional ways of assessing students’ knowledge in mathematics through a discussion of the ethical and philosophical aspects of assessment. This is achieved by applying Bornemark and Cusa’s thinking of humans’ calculating (ratio practices) and reflecting (intellectus practices) capacities on assessment and discussing the possibilities and pitfalls that emerge as these capacities come into use. This is illustrated with the policy and practice concerning the assessment practices of students with intellectual disabilities (ID) in Sweden. The article provides a path for recognizing and reflecting on what kind of knowledge production researchers, teachers, and students contribute to as they engage in assessment. This creates an opportunity to re-think how we fabricate students, knowledge, and mathematics and how we wish to do so in the future.

This paper is an exploration of how an educational method, Explicit Instruction (EI), is used and reflected upon in research in relation to special educational needs in mathematics (SEM) in early school years. The current research front is put in relation to the Swedish curricula in mathematics and the Swedish school act (steering documents) to explore potential possibilities and challenges of the research findings in a Swedish context. The analysis was done in three steps: 1) a systematic search of research literature, 2) a content analysis of the literature 3) a relation of the results of to the steering documents. The exploration of the possibilities of EI displays that EI can contribute to every student's learning by providing a distinct structure in relation to the mathematical content. It displays challenges for special education in mathematics regarding collaboration between teachers, the competence of teachers, and time to plan the EI and time for the students working with EI.

Vi kommer i denna föreläsning att berätta om vårt fleråriga samarbete med att utveckla kunskaper om inkluderande och likvärdig matematikundervisning. Detta är både en inspiration för hur forskare och lärare kan samarbete, samtidigt som vi delger en modell för att utvärdera undervisningsmaterial och huruvida de verkar inkluderande. Detta är ett resultat från ett EU- projekt och där både en version för lärare och en version för barn utarbetats i samarbete med forskare och lärare i Italien, Tyskland och Luxemburg. Modellen kommer att presenteras och vi illustrerar hur den kan användas både av lärare och av lärare med elever. För tillfället är även ett fortsättningsprojekt inplanerat och där större fokus kommer att ligga på digitala material.

Referenser

https://en.itm-europe.org/