Rethinking Affect in Education from a Societal-Historical Perspective: The Case of Mathematics Anxiety Roth and Margaret Walshaw Victoria Wolff-Michael Roth Margaret Walshaw University of Victoria, Canada Massey University, New Zealand Abstract Affect tends to be treated in educational research as a factor external to but influencing cognition even in those approaches that ally themselves with cultural-historical approaches that denounce the separation of affect and intellect. In this study, we use the case of mathematics anxiety to exhibit and exemplify the ways in which affect tends to be theorized. We then present the radical alternative that L. S. Vygotsky initially proposed and that was further developed by scholars that advanced his idea of unit analysis. There are several consequences for the measurement of affect and its relations to other dimensions of activity. Keywords: affect, unit analysis, society, history, dynamics Introduction Contemporary research reports tend to paint a picture of active classroom communities consisting of engaged learner discussants and facilitating teachers, all of whom speak in calm and modulated voices. Reports of classroom environments like these can be deceiving because they cover over affects such as frustration, panic, hostility, and tears, as well as blushes, laughs, confidence, elation, and enthusiasm that are always embedded within the setting. Affective responses are vital elements of, and are intrinsic to, classroom life—yet they generally are not captured by the small print of the classroom research contract. This can be seen in the following vignette from a fourth-grade classroom, which appeared in a book- length cultural-historical analysis of mathematical activity (Roth & Radford, 2011, pp. 36– 38): VIGNETTE: The children have been asked to model the process of saving $3 a week beginning with a start up of $6. In the first step, the children use goblets and plastic chips to represent the first six weeks of the process. They are then asked to fill up two rows of a table of values that is to guide them to write the saved dollar amounts as 3 + 6, 3 + 3 + 6, . . . 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 6, and then to translate these expressions into the equivalent, shortened expressions 1 x 3 + 6, 2 x 3 + 6, . . . 6 x 3 + 6. Aurélie, after some attempt, says in a plaintive voice, ‘like this doesn’t make sense.’ She asks her two classmates at the same group of table how to do the task. She then pounds the desk repeatedly and throws herself against the backrest. She says, ‘I don’t understand. And I will never understand’ (p. 38) and places her head on folded arms upon the table. In the end, she copies the results from another student at the table group. In reflecting on Aurélie’s actions, we became concerned about the way in which anxiety shapes, is shaped by, and precludes mathematical activity in ways that traditional approaches to research on affect does not capture. In this paper we therefore develop a theoretical