Ebook: Toward an Anthropology of Graphing: Semiotic and Activity-Theoretic Perspectives

During the summer of 1990, while taking my holidays to teach a university course of physics for elementary teachers, I also tutored one of the tenth-grade students at my school in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. In return for working with him for free, I had requested permission to audiotape our sessions; I wanted to use the transcripts as data sources for a chapter that I had been in­ vited to write. It so happened that I discovered and read Jean Lave's Cognition in Practice that very summer, which inspired me to read other books on mathe­ matics in everyday situations. Two years later, while conducting a study with my teacher colleague G. Michael Bowen on eighth-grade students' learning during an open-inquiry ecology unit, I discovered these students' tremendous data analysis skills that appeared to be a function of the deep familiarity with the objects and events that they had studied and mathematized earlier in the unit. I reported my findings in two articles, 'Mathematization of experience in a grade 8 open-inquiry environment: An introduction to the representational practices of science' and 'Where is the context in contextual word problems?: Mathematical practices and products in Grade 8 students' answers to story problems'. I Begin­ ning with that study, I developed a research agenda that focused on mathemati­ cal knowing in science and science-related professions. During the early 1990s, I was also interested in the notion of authentic practice as a metaphor for planning school science curriculum.

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Toward an Anthropology of Graphing: Semiotic and Activity-Theoretic Perspectives presents the results of several studies involving scientists and technicians. In Part One of the book, "Graphing in Captivity", the author describes and analyses the interpretation scientists volunteered given graphs that had been culled from an introductory course and textbook in ecology. Surprisingly, the scientists were not the experts that the author expected them to be on the basis of the existing expert-novice literature. The section ends with the analysis of graphs that the scientists had culled from their own work. Here, they articulated a tremendous amount of background understanding before talking about the content of their graphs. In Part Two, "Graphing in the Wild", the author reports on graph usage in three different workplaces based on his ethnographic research among scientists and technicians. Based on these data, the author concludes that graphs and graphing are meaningful to the extent that they are deeply embedded in and connected to the familiarity with the workplace.

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Toward an Anthropology of Graphing: Semiotic and Activity-Theoretic Perspectives presents the results of several studies involving scientists and technicians. In Part One of the book, "Graphing in Captivity", the author describes and analyses the interpretation scientists volunteered given graphs that had been culled from an introductory course and textbook in ecology. Surprisingly, the scientists were not the experts that the author expected them to be on the basis of the existing expert-novice literature. The section ends with the analysis of graphs that the scientists had culled from their own work. Here, they articulated a tremendous amount of background understanding before talking about the content of their graphs. In Part Two, "Graphing in the Wild", the author reports on graph usage in three different workplaces based on his ethnographic research among scientists and technicians. Based on these data, the author concludes that graphs and graphing are meaningful to the extent that they are deeply embedded in and connected to the familiarity with the workplace.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Toward an Anthropology of Graphing....Pages 1-21
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
From ‘Expertise’ to Situated Reason....Pages 25-67
Unfolding Interpretations....Pages 69-101
Problematic Readings....Pages 103-145
Articulating Background....Pages 147-183
Front Matter....Pages 185-185
Reading Graphs....Pages 187-220
From Writhing Lizards to Graphs....Pages 221-266
Fusion of Sign and Referent....Pages 267-309
Back Matter....Pages 311-342

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Toward an Anthropology of Graphing: Semiotic and Activity-Theoretic Perspectives presents the results of several studies involving scientists and technicians. In Part One of the book, "Graphing in Captivity", the author describes and analyses the interpretation scientists volunteered given graphs that had been culled from an introductory course and textbook in ecology. Surprisingly, the scientists were not the experts that the author expected them to be on the basis of the existing expert-novice literature. The section ends with the analysis of graphs that the scientists had culled from their own work. Here, they articulated a tremendous amount of background understanding before talking about the content of their graphs. In Part Two, "Graphing in the Wild", the author reports on graph usage in three different workplaces based on his ethnographic research among scientists and technicians. Based on these data, the author concludes that graphs and graphing are meaningful to the extent that they are deeply embedded in and connected to the familiarity with the workplace.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Toward an Anthropology of Graphing....Pages 1-21
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
From ‘Expertise’ to Situated Reason....Pages 25-67
Unfolding Interpretations....Pages 69-101
Problematic Readings....Pages 103-145
Articulating Background....Pages 147-183
Front Matter....Pages 185-185
Reading Graphs....Pages 187-220
From Writhing Lizards to Graphs....Pages 221-266
Fusion of Sign and Referent....Pages 267-309
Back Matter....Pages 311-342
....