Re-interpreting children’s initiatives in mathematical inquiry processes as distributed agency over human and non-human agents

Abstract The point of departure for this article was our interest in how processes of mathematical inquiry (MI) unfold in kindergarten contexts, and their relations to play. In this study, we are scrutinising one specific aspect of mathematical inquiry, that is children’s initiatives when they participate in playful and inquiry-based mathematical activities in a Norwegian kindergarten context. The aim of this study is thus to scrutinize what characterises those events where mathematical initiatives seem to arise from a child. We consider the seeming initiatives as signs of freedom, eagerness and/or willingness, i.e., signs of agency. We draw on de Freitas and Sinclair’s (2014) inclusive materialist perspective to study embodied and material dimensions of the children’s mathematics learning processes. We, accordingly, conceptualise agency as a relational force that emerges from activity and is distributed between human and non-human agents. The analyses of videotaped and transcribed kindergarten events reveal, we argue, that the observed eagerness and willingness are emerging from the learning process, rather than being prerequisites initiating learning. The mathematical aesthetic serves as an essential force in the learning assemblages where disruption between what the children sense (perceive) and what is expected or accepted to sense seems to be an essential driving force for the further exploration. This has important implications for teaching. Kindergarten teachers may prompt MI by setting up mathematically conspicuous cruxes in the environment. That is, to establish opportunities for differences, paradoxes, etc. to emerge in mathematical activities.