Does disability matter in mathematics educational research? A critical comparison of research on students with and without disabilities

摘要

Using a Disability Studies in Education framework, this systematic review analyzed international research published in English (2013–2017) on the teaching and learning of mathematics from the prekindergarten to 12th-grade level, comparing research on students identified as having disabilities to research on students without disabilities. Coding articles (N = 2477) for methodology, participants, mathematical domain, and theoretical orientation, we found that research on students with disabilities was overwhelmingly quantitative (81%) and tended to use behavioral and medical theoretical orientations. Research on students without disabilities was both qualitative (42%) and quantitative (42%) and tended to use constructivist and sociocultural theoretical orientations. In addition, research on mathematical learning that included students with disabilities lacked sustained qualitative inquiry documenting learning processes of students with disabilities and rarely included the teacher as an explicit focus. Following Gervasoni and Lindenskov (2011), we contend that these pronounced differences in research contribute to the segregation of students with disabilities and low-achieving students in lower quality mathematics instruction and may lead to low expectations of the mathematical competence of students with disabilities. We call for increased attention to research that considers how disability is produced and enacted in the complex context of mathematics classrooms.