S. Ongstad: Teaching, learning and context. Didactic pitfalls of discursive focusing Mentally teaching and learning are strongly focused activities. Mind and body are directed towards a particular highlighted task, imposed or self-given. In school the object may be a cultural artefact represented in some semiotics, often verbal language or symbolic signs (Lemke, 1995). Approaches implied in teaching and learning as processes are mainly dependent on (verbally) established concepts and worldviews through which we percept (Habermas, 1984). The ability to focus through and by particular semiotics is thus of significant value for our understanding, knowledge production, and development. However, both between the academic disciplines and between the school subjects in school and teacher education there are major differences regarding the 'nature' of the objects for teaching and learning (Mellin-Olsen, 1987). These differences are so significant that they may force didacticians to revise their conception of the very nature of context (Bateson, 1972). Thus context without focus does not exist; there is no context without a text. In other words, its only by focusing a context occurs. Further, focusing happens through or by (semiotic) genres, the cultural lenses through which we perceive the world (Bakhtin, 1986, Derrida, 1980). This view opposes perceptions of context as given or constant and contexts as totally open and chaotic (Duranti and Goodwin, 1992). In addition it problematises validity claims that could be raised for any teaching, learning, or research (Lather, 1993) 'Pure' mathematics is for instance established by the refusal of context as relevant, by which both sender and receiver of mathematical utterances are left out, irrelevant for the proposition (Kaith, 2005). Nevertheless mathematics consciously uses particular genre regimes to establish the discipline and relate it to 'contexts' (Halliday, 1978). Similarly natural sciences have copied the ideological practice by creating different discursive procedures for removing the impact of context upon the object (Sjøberg, 1998). The cultural sciences however are, according to Dilthey (1976), doomed to dependency between a focused object by mind and a context thus created by the same mind. Major theorists within the cultural domain have developed basic concepts aiming to reduce contextual chaos (Bourdieu habitus, Bernstein frames and code, Foucault énoncé and discourse, Habermas lifeworlds, Halliday register, Bakhtin genre). Validity is not always addressed though. Therefore this paper will meta-analyse instances of didactic research (on teaching and on learning) critically to problematise how the way of focusing (the implicit research design established by genres and discourses or the like) create possible pitfalls regarding validity (Catudal, 1990). Especially two problems will be highlighted - context seen mainly as 'constant' and context seen as totally open ('chaos'). The different research positionings will be discussed in relation to directions such as structuralism, poststructuralism, grounded theory, and discourse analysis, all at risk regarding this principle question. References Bakhtin, M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: UTP. Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books. Catudal, F. (1990) Validity, Communication, and Interpretation. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 22/2:8-25. Derrida, J. (1980) The Law of Genre. Glyph. 7:176-201. Dilthey, P. (1976) Selected writings. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Duranti, A. and Goodwin, C. (1992) Rethinking Context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon. Halliday, MAK (1978) Language as social semiotic. London: Arnold. Khait, A. (2005) The Definition of Mathematics. Science and Education, 14/2:137-159 Lather, P. (1993) Fertile Obsession: Validity After Poststructuralism. The Sociological Quarterly. 34/4:673-693. Lemke, J. (1995) Textual Politics. London: Taylor&Francis. Mellin-Olsen, S. (1987) The Politics of Mathematics Education. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sjøberg, S. (1998) Naturfag som allmenndannelse [Science Education as 'Bildung']. Oslo: Ad Notam.

Text analysis. Positioning analysis. (See last reference under 'References'.)

Aims at adical redefinition of the concept of context, with crucial implications for validating research on teaching and learning.