Disrupting 'development' as the quality/equity discourse: Cyborgs and subalterns in school technoscience

Abstract

Discourses of 'development' as the achievement of rationality are still predominant in current curricula reforms in education. Specifically, in mathematics education, technology-mediated teaching is assumed a means for development towards progressive policies for inclusion in both metropolitan (e.g. NCTM in US, 2000), and peripheral localities (e.g. DEPPS in Greece, 2003). Such curricula reforms have been largely rooted in pedagogical agendas for quality/equity (mathematics) education that aim to foster simultaneously self and society development in the realm of a 'new' information age. Despite high expectations, technology and mathematics are still peripheral options for most females when they consider further studying or career up growth. The present paper discusses the potential for an alternative theorising of female relation to school technoscience such as technology and mathematics-related literacies. Based on a preliminary analysis of interview data the constructs of 'cyborg' and 'subaltern' are introduced as ways of disrupting stereotypic readings of a partial relation to technoscience as negative, passive or, even, dangerous. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011.