Socioeconomic aspects on the didactic transposition of algebra

I am an upper secondary teacher in mathematics and graduated from Uppsala University in 2018. I thereafter taught mathematics at two different schools; one vocational school and one school with solely higher educational preparatory programmes. During the time I worked as a teacher I noticed that a lot of students, regardless of background or programme, experienced difficulties in algebraic thinking. I got more and more interested of this and an idea of a dissertation project started to grow in my mind. I started my doctoral studies in January 2021.

In my dissertation project am I mostly interested in socioeconomic aspects on algebra teaching and learning on upper secondary level in Sweden. I am interested in aspects concerning the content of algebra teaching and learning with differences and similarities between vocational and higher educational preparatory programmes. My research thus concerns aspects of algebra teaching and learning both when it comes to what is happening inside the classroom and what has happened before the content reaches the classroom. To study this, I use, among other theories, the theoretical framework ATD (Anthropological Theory of the Didactic) and more specifically the model of didactic transposition. Didactic transposition makes it possible to study how a (mathematical) content is chosen and transformed by and within different institutions before it reaches the actual student in the classroom.