The cultural, ethnic, and class differentiations in mathematics achievement receives growing attention from mathematics education researchers (Gutierrez, 2013). Researchers have highlighted that public education systems did not produce equal outcomes for all students; significant differences in students’ mathematics achievements, were continually observable among groups classifiable by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and language background (Gregson, 2007). Although out of classroom/school experiences have very important role in these achievement differences, it is also important to investigate micro classroom interactions/discourse to figure out how these socio-economic and cultural differences has turned into academic outcomes.

‘Cultural capital’ is one of the important constructs to understand this conversion of socio-economic and cultural differences into academic achievement (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). The concept was instrumentalized in diverse ways to study reproduction of social inequalities (Lareau and Horvat, 1999; Zevenbergen, 2001; Ingram, 2009; Forsey, 2010; Cavieres, 2011). Forsey (2010), for instance, pointed out the cultural capital as the reason of low quality communication and interaction between teachers and students. He indicated that teachers felt more comfortable with students coming from similar social background with them and were more likely to create classroom atmosphere in which students from middle and upper-middle class families would be favored. Zevenbergen (2001), also, meaningfully customize Bourdieu’s theoretical constructs to investigate how social inequities were reproduced in the context of mathematics education. She argued that linguistic practices and interaction patterns within the middle-class families provide more chance to ‘legitimate participation’ in the field of mathematics education with comparison to working-class families.

With this perspective, this study aims to instrumentalize ‘cultural capital’ so as to understand the relationship between students’ cultural background and mathematics learning. The specific purpose of this study is to trace the impacts of cultural differences based on social class into the communication and learning in an elementary mathematics classroom in Turkey.

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage Publications. Cavieres, E. A. (2011). The Class and Culture-Based Exclusion of the Chilean Neoliberal Educational Reform. Educational Studies, 47 (2), 111-132. Forsey, M. (2010). Teachers and the re-production of middle-class culture in Australian schools. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 20 (1), 67-81. Gregson, S. A. (2007). The Equity Practice of a Mathematics Teacher in a Secondary School Committed to College Preparation, Community Connection, and Social Justice. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Conference. Chicago. Gutierrez, R. (2013). The Sociopolitical Turn in Mathematics Education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 44 (1), 37-68. Ingram, N. (2009). Working-class boys, educational success and the misrecognition of working-class culture. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30 (4), 421–434. Lareau, A., & Horvat, E. M. (1999). Moments of Social Inclusion and Exclusion Race, Class, and Cultural Capital in Family-School Relationships. Sociology of Education, 72, 37-53. Zevenbergen, R. (2001). Mathematics, social class and linguistic capital: An analysis of mathematics classroom interactions. In B. Atweh, H. Forgasz, & B. Nebres (Eds.), Sociocultural research on mathematics education: An international perspective (pp. 201–215). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers