Abstract:
This paper reports the first stage of an ethnographic study of students' experiences of collaborative learning in secondary mathematics classrooms. One aim of the study was to investigate the interaction of student gender and the social construction of mathematical competence in collaborative learning contexts. Students working in small groups on investigative activities were observed and videotaped, and key informants interviewed. One approach to analysing student-student interactions was to identify roles adopted spontaneously by the students when working in groups independently of the teacher, such as "organiser", "teacher" and "critic". Another was to look at the exercise of power within the group, and to try to relate that to the roles adopted and the outcome of the interaction.