THE THEORY OF OBJECTIFICATION AND ITS PLACE AMONG SOCIOCULTURAL RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
This article is an attempt at locating the theory of objectification (TO) among sociocultural research in mathematics education. The first part contains a summary of the emergence of sociocultural perspectives in mathematics education research. The second part deals with some of the central ideas that underpin the TO. It begins with a discussion of the concepts of teachers and students. Then, the general trend of language centered types of theorizing in mathematics teaching and learning is discussed. The discussion is followed by a brief presentation of the concept of activity as understood in dialectic materialism. Such a concept is central to the TO. This concept, however, is reformulated as joint labor, which works in tandem with a dialect materialist concept of knowledge and the knower. Through these concepts the TO reformulates teaching and learning as an ethical cultural historical phenomenon, providing the TO with a distinct orientation among sociocultural research.