Participation and performance: keys to confident learning in mathematics?

In this paper I explore what it means to be confident in learning mathematics, and give an account of how the attribution of confidence plays a part in the identifications that underpin learners' relationships to mathematics learning. Through an illustrative analysis of pedagogic practices and extracts from interviews with pre-service student teachers I discuss the interplay between relationships, identifications and competences that permeate this site for learning mathematics. The model offered by 'subjectivity' is introduced to give a productive analytical frame for the process by which learners identify themselves with mathematics. I illustrate how the constructs of 'confidence' and 'competence' are habitually conflated and examine how this conflation can sustain the attribution of confidence, and so attainment, from performative information alone. I also discuss how a willingness and an ability to participate in classroom interactions in key ways can lead to a student being seen as a confident and successful learner and how this process can also contribute to restricted understandings of learners' experiences.