Materiality and discourse in school curriculum: A Critical examination of mathematics

We bring contemporary theoretical approaches to bear on the question of the relationship between the material and the discursive in curriculum studies when researching the effects of power of the school curriculum in generating the inclusion/exclusion of learners. We argue for the need to bring materiality and discourse together in such a way that we might better address the political realities of education. From various international, historical, and theoretical contexts, we critically examine how discourse and materiality intricately define and describe the classifications by which notions of intellectual, social, and economic poverty are organized in the curriculum. Our focus on school mathematics is essential, since this is a curricular area that is seldom approached as a field of cultural politics.