Students' Critical Perceptions About Mathematics Education

This paper presents excerpts from 10 semi-structured interviews conducted with 8th and 9th grade students in a Norwegian countryside school. Interviews were conducted to gain an insight into students' potential to critically perceive three aspects of mathematics education (ME), namely, subject content, mode of instruction and perceived relevance. Results indicate that pupils hold diverging views regarding these aspects of ME and hence find it difficult to reflect coherently upon them. This reveals students' unfamiliarity with their role as critical thinkers and learners. However, when encouraged, pupils demonstrated the potential to think critically about above-mentioned aspects of ME along with suggesting changes to mathematics teaching they are used to.