Tony Brown

Manchester Metropolitan University, Education and Social Research Institute, Emeritus

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Tony Brown is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. His work considers mathematics education and teacher education through the lens of contemporary social theory. Tony has published ten books, the most recent being A contemporary theory of mathematics education research. Full profile: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/research-centres/esri/staff/profile/professor-tony-brown#tab-tabs_staff_profile-2
Phone: 07928800712

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Books by Tony Brown

A Contemporary Theory of Mathematics Education Research

This book by-passes both psychology and sociology to present an original social theory centered o... more This book by-passes both psychology and sociology to present an original social theory centered on seeing mathematical learning by everyone as an intrinsic dimension of how mathematics develops as a field in support of human activity. Here, mathematics is defined by how we collectively talk about it. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, the student is seen as participating in the renewal of mathematics through their contributions to our collective gaze on mathematics as the field responds to ever new demands. As such learning takes a critical stance on the standard initiations into current practices often promoted by formal education. In the field of mathematics education, researchers have moved from psychology where individual students were seen as following natural paths of development through existing mathematical knowledge, to socio-cultural models predicated on students being initiated into the human world and understood through the reflective gazes this world has of itself, such as those found in comparisons of student learning in different countries. This book addresses the domain, purpose and functioning of contemporary research in mathematics education and is an original contribution to this theme. The book is aimed at a mathematics education research audience. It continues a dialogue with existing publications, seen widely as a cutting edge and will also be of interest to students and practitioners in the fields of qualitative research, social theory and psychology. New book- Tony Brown A contemporary theory of mathematics education research https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030550998#aboutBook A preface providing an action-packed overview is freely downloadable as a pdf: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-55100-1

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Papers by Tony Brown

Book review response. Who wants to know? Author’s response to review of A Contemporary Theory of Mathematics Education Research

Educational Studies in Mathematics, Apr 5, 2023

Book review response. Who wants to know? Author’s response to review of A Contemporary Theory of Mathematics Education Research

Educational Studies in Mathematics

Evolving teacher educator responsiveness 1

The Psychology of Mathematics Education

Theory in and for mathematics education: in pursuit of a critical agenda

Educational Studies in Mathematics, 2016

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Creating data in practitioner research

Teaching and Teacher Education, 1996

This paper examines how writing produced within school-based practitioner research can function i... more This paper examines how writing produced within school-based practitioner research can function in framing and guiding both classroom practice and the research process itself. It outlines a model from Saussurian linguistics for analysing text, widely used by post-structuralist writers. In this model the meaning of the text depends on an evolving relationship between the words within it. An analogy is drawn with practitioner research, which is characterised as the generation and analysis of a sequence of pieces of writing, whose meaning can be derived through analysis of the relation between the successive pieces of writing produced. This model is employed as a framework for understanding, monitoring and influencing changes in practice. Examples are offered from a masters course for practising teachers.

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Delineations of culture in mathematics education research

From being a 'learner of mathematics' to becoming a 'teacher of mathematics

Towards Reconciling Insider and Outsider Perspectives

Mathematics Teacher Education New Teacher Identity and Regulative GovernmentThe Discursive Format... more

The Cultural Renewal of Mathematical Learning

Mathematics Education and Subjectivity, 2011

The last chapter sought to introduce a contemporary understanding of subjectivity in support of t... more The last chapter sought to introduce a contemporary understanding of subjectivity in support of the theme of this second part of the book: cultural renewal. A key point of the chapter was to resist essentialist or fixed conceptions of the human subject, since they might fix the conceptions of mathematics that we feel able to entertain, or renewal trajectories specified around objects reconfigured in accounts of renewal. A particular target was Piaget with his reliance on an image of a human passing through successive stages of development common to all. Lacan’s conception of the subject on the other hand is endlessly responsive to new conditions. Lacan argued that Piaget’s conception of the child’s formation avoided the centrality of social demand, initially from parents and later from the wider social sphere. In Lacan’s formulation, the changing symbolic environment and the Real to which it uneasily relates unsettle the individual’s already mistaken understanding of who they are.

Implications for Practice

Becoming a Mathematics Teacher, 2011

What did the review involve? • Evaluations & reported findings from divorce-related parenting pro... more What did the review involve? • Evaluations & reported findings from divorce-related parenting programmes aimed exclusively at, or including fathers, and which focus on improving parent-child and coparenting relationships • Included a range of evaluation study designs, including experimental (e.g. control or comparison groups) and qualitative (e.g. descriptive, or based on experiences/satisfaction & self-reporting) • Peer reviewed or commissioned evaluations published between • Not restricted to the UK, but published in English  29 publications were initially identified. From this, 18 peer reviewed articles and one commissioned report met all the criteria for inclusion resulting in 13 interventions.

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The Shaping of School Mathematics

Becoming a Mathematics Teacher, 2011

It may be difficult to achieve consensus on an ideologically free conception of mathematics teach... more It may be difficult to achieve consensus on an ideologically free conception of mathematics teaching. Mathematics itself is susceptible to being portrayed through discursive apparatus and caught between alternative accounts. Mathematics is generally a function of the social agendas relating to the circumstances of its practice. In primary education it will be mediated through the discourses pertaining to this arena.

Sharing Mathematical Perspectives

Mathematics Education and Language, 2001

As I pointed out in the last chapter Saussure saw language as having the dual function of articul... more As I pointed out in the last chapter Saussure saw language as having the dual function of articulating meaning (process) and communication (product). However, Saussure and also his modern day advocates in post-structuralism see both process and product as contingent on each other. As educators we are often concerned not so much with the learning itself as with giving an account of what learning has taken place (cf. Garfinkel, 1967, pp. 24–31, who discusses the difficulties of moving between what is said and what is being spoken about). We need to decide what has been learnt by a student and how this has been demonstrated through tangible product, whether this be the application of a method, a reproduction of a famous result, or some verbal explanation of work completed, etc. Learning by the student, however, continuously evolves, oscillating between understanding and explanation; that is, between an on-going learning process and statements generated within this process, which become as if frozen in time. Further, this learning encompasses concerns beyond the frame which maybe anticipated by the teacher.

Mathematics Education and Subjectivity

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Semantic Innovation: Arithmetical and Algebraic Metaphors Within Narratives of Learning

Educational Studies in Mathematics, 1999

This paper examines a theoretical perspective on the ways in which children progress in learning ... more This paper examines a theoretical perspective on the ways in which children progress in learning mathematics. It suggests that there is a difficulty in associating teaching discourses with the mathematics they locate. This can result in an incommensurability between alternative perspectives being offered. The paper resists attempts to privilege any particular account but rather demands an analysis of these discourses

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A Tale of Disturbance and Unsettlement: incorporating and enacting deconstruction with the purpose of challenging aspects of pedagogy in the nursery classroom

Teachers and Teaching, 1999

This paper illustrates some of the repercussions, particularly the advantages, in adopting decons... more This paper illustrates some of the repercussions, particularly the advantages, in adopting deconstructive approaches to those meanings which are brought to an account of young children's play within a teacher research enquiry. In describing and interpreting an example offered here the objective is not to fix a definitive or accurate explanation to it. Instead, the ambition is to disperse rather than capture meanings, to offer multiple and open ended interpretations and in so doing disturb the equilibrium of the reported perspective which gave rise to the account. Through such an approach, it is suggested, we can challenge ingrained ways of knowing and doing which inhibit opportunities to question 'authoritarian fictions' present in the way we often describe the learning of young children, which because they are habitual and collective have come to be regarded as 'natural' and 'truths'. How does school-based practitioner research function in framing and guiding classroom practice? This paper arises from an enquiry assuming the premise that the practitioner researching in his or her classroom brings about changes both through acting in the classroom itself and in producing writing commenting on this classroom practice. That is, descriptions of classroom practice, made by the practitioner, effect changes in the reality attended to by this practitioner. The writing generated in this process can be seen as both responding to past action and guiding future action. In short, in describing my classroom, I affect the way I see it, thus the way I act in it and hence the way I subsequently describe it (since it has been changed by my actions). In engaging in this circular hermeneutic process, teacher/researchers pass through a sequence of perspectives, each capable of generating various types of writing and each susceptible to a variety of later interpretations. In commencing the enquiry an essential dimension of our task was concerned with how the research process, conceived in these terms, enables the practitioner in organising the complexity of the teaching situation, with a particular emphasis on how 'monitoring change' can be converted to 'control of change'. But it was this very desire for control, and the difficulties we encountered in trying to document it, which led us in to a certain skepticism with our original proposals. We began to question whether this central motivation clouded our vision from the very complexities we sought to capture. What began as an attempt at a reconciliation of the hermeneutic underpinnings of our practitioner research enterprise with post-structuralist analyses, turned more into a disruption of our initial assumptions. Thus we switched from a somewhat rationalist

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Reasserting theory in professionally based initial teacher education

Teachers and Teaching, 2011

Conceptions of theory within initial teacher education in England are adjusting to new conditions... more Conceptions of theory within initial teacher education in England are adjusting to new conditions where most learning how to teach is school-based. Student teachers on a programme situated primarily in an employing school were monitored within a practitioner enquiry by their university programme tutors according to how they progressively understood theory. The tutors meanwhile also focused on how their own conceptions of theory responded and evolved in relation to their students' changing perceptions. This resulted in the students retrospectively identifying and developing theoretical and analytical capabilities. University sessions became a reflective platform from which to critically interrogate the emergent story of what it is to be a teacher in a school. There are implications for schools and universities about what it is to learn to be a teacher.

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Reflective engagement in cultural history: a Lacanian perspective on Pasifika teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand

Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 2007

How do we understand our own cultural histories and how do these understandings impact on our sen... more How do we understand our own cultural histories and how do these understandings impact on our senses of self? This paper addresses the case of Pacific-islander migration into New Zealand. It is based on a study fuelled by a group of Pacific island teachers exploring their own experiences of becoming teachers in New Zealand schools. The paper raises some theoretical issues relating to cultural identity as understood in relation to educational practices at the interfaces of cultures. By examining how notions of Pacific cultural identity for individuals are held in place by particular self-images the paper asks how such identities might be seen as reaching out to possible futures. The paper concludes with some tentative thoughts on how an individual might work towards strengthening an historical sense of self and a more productive reflective/reflexive conception of engagement in a situation of cultural minority.

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‘Effectiveness of Continuing Professional Development’ project: A summary of findings

Medical Teacher, 2010

This paper reports on a study examining continuing professional development for consultant doctor... more This paper reports on a study examining continuing professional development for consultant doctors. Using a mixture of qualitative (interviews, letters, observation) and quantitative (online questionnaire) methods, the views of CPD providers and users were surveyed. The study met the following objectives: comparing and contrasting the experiences of CPD across the range of specialties; identifying and describing the range of different models of CPD employed across the different specialties and clinical contexts; considering the educational potential of reflective practice in CPD and its impact on professional practice; and exploring how different professionals judge the effectiveness of current CPD practices. The effectiveness of CPD, as inferred from the comments made by interviewees and questionnaire respondents, relates to the impact on knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, behaviours and changes in practice in the work place. The quality of CPD was seen as inextricably linked to any improvements in the quality of the professional practices required for service delivery. There was widespread consensus as to the value of learning in professional settings. There was recognition that there needs to be a move away from tick boxes to the in-depth identification of learning needs and how these can be met both within and external to the workplace, with learning being adequately enabled and assessed in all locations.

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Tony Brown

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