Power relations within division of labour – the key to empowering learners from marginalized backgrounds in mathematics classrooms

Bringing Bourdieu and Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) together, I present, here, a methodology for pedagogic interventions that are developmental for non-dominant learners. Drawing on a Year 8 mathematics classroom (UK), I demonstrate how learners’ positioning, and position-takings in the division of labor of a teaching-learning activity (following CHAT) are mediated by objective power relations that perpetuate an inequitable educational system (following Bourdieu). Here, teachers recognizing and valuing learners’ non-dominant forms of capital, and peer relations is key to non-dominant learners’ enactment of agency and empowerment of their voices, and this can create opportunities of resistance, development, and change.