Representation of the notion “learning-as-participation” in everyday situations of mathematics classes

It will be argued that the recent discussion about “learning-as-participation” is primarily led rather on an abstract level and therefore needs specific mathematics classroom research in order to substantiate how these general theoretical perspectives are represented in social practices at school. Blumer’s differentiation between “sensitizing concepts” and “definite concepts” in theories of social science that had been adapted to everyday classroom situations of teaching and learning mathematics will be applied in order to develop an empirically definitive concept for the description of forms of participation that facilitate the learning of mathematics.