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The work argues for emotionally safe classrooms alongside competent mathematics teaching, and responds to counterproductive narratives that treat mathematics anxiety as an unquestioned explanation for low achievement.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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[r.eden@massey.ac.nz](r.eden@massey.ac.nz)  \nJoanna Higgins  \nVictoria University of Wellington [joanna.higgins@vuw.ac.nz](joanna.higgins@vuw.ac.nz)  \nLinda Bonne  \nVictoria University of Wellington  \n[linda.bonne@vuw.ac.nz](linda.bonne@vuw.ac.nz)  \nIn mathematics education research, a focus on cognition in learning experiences often obscures emotion. Our ongoing research has underscored the importance of the emotional dimensions and social interactions that contribute to social solidarity. Through a sociology of emotions framing and event-oriented social inquiry, we identify salient characteristics in primary and preservice mathematics settings to show how social interactions can build social solidarity and help create an emotionally safe learning environment. We demonstrate that social solidarity includes three aspects:  \nritual objects; being-in/with others, and collective empathy.  \nImproving students’ achievement in mathematics continues to be a pressing issue in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. A common policy lever for raising achievement is to focus on teachers’ competencies for teaching mathematics. In a recent policy change, the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (2024) now requires primary initial teacher education providers to assess the preparedness of graduates with mandated entry assessment of competence in mathematics. Year 5 students in Aotearoa New Zealand (see Caygill et al., 2024) also report that they are not confident about doing school mathematics. We take a position that attention to raising student achievement in mathematics includes building and transforming the emotional aspects of classroom learning environments.  \nReframing negative narratives about emotions associated with mathematics is long overdue and approaches to responding to emotions are often counterproductive to learning. One strategy for promoting anxious learners’ engagement in mathematics has been the adoption of games to cast mathematics as “fun” as part ofan emotionally safe learning environment. However, efforts to “make maths fun” by simplifying the mathematics can mask and detract from students’opportunities to engage with challenging mathematical ideas (Bonne & Higgins, 2022) . Mathematics anxiety has become an increasingly pervasive and unquestioned explanation for low mathematics achievement and poor relationships with the subject. The enduring and intergenerational entanglement between emotions and the teaching of mathematics (Foley et al., 2017) illuminates the challenge of transforming stubborn discourses, such as mathematics anxiety. The aim of this paper is to present insights from a body of research that focuses on how teachers and teacher educators can attend to students’ emotions in mathematics classes to build emotionally safe learning environments. To do so, we unpack events that occurred in the context of students and their teachers playing whole-class mathematics games.  \nConsidering Emotions in Mathematics Learning Environments  \nTo date, cognition has been a primary focus in understanding education settings, however it is now important to bring emotions to the forefront to highlight the interdependent relationship between emotion and cognition, as explained in sociological theories of emotion (Collins, 2004; Turner, 2002). It is generally agreed that the place of emotions in education has been under-investigated. Zembylas (2005) suggested three reasons why this may be the case: first, that because emotions are fluid, they are therefore more difficult to describe than cognition; secondly, the dominance of cognitive psychology over education research endures; and thirdly,“there is the legacy of dualism, which has opposed reason to emotion, and accorded  \nreason the high status inscribed in Western thinking”(p. 123) . Indeed, a seam of research continues to explore ways to measure emotions in mathematics contexts (e.g., Lin et ","cbCaiv7Di18fsDZ6","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiv7Di18fsDZ6","pdf",319006,"English","# Considering Emotions in Mathematics Learning Environments\n## Emotions, cognition, and sociological theory\n## Emotion research gaps in mathematics education\n## Affect and identity in Aotearoa New Zealand contexts","[{\"question\":\"Why does the paper emphasize emotions in mathematics education rather than only cognition?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that emotion and social interaction are interdependent with cognition and have been under-investigated, so they must be integrated to support mathematics learning and achievement.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper define social solidarity in emotionally safe mathematics settings?\",\"answer\":\"Social solidarity includes three aspects: ritual objects, being-in/with others, and collective empathy, which arise through social interactions during learning events.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the paper propose for improving students’ achievement in mathematics?\",\"answer\":\"It proposes building and transforming the emotional dimensions of classroom learning environments, alongside competent teaching focused on both hearts and minds.\"}]","Minding Emotions in Mathematics Education | PDF",1792057092]