Beyond anxiety: A theoretical inquiry into shame in mathematics education

This paper explores the role of shame as a central yet often overlooked, emotion in mathematics education. Although anxiety dominates emotion-focused discourse in the field, this paper argues that shame, deeply embodied, relational, and entangled with identity, deserves closer attention. Drawing on cultural and sociological perspectives, this paper contends that shame in mathematics classrooms is not simply a personal reaction to failure but a socially produced affect rooted in normative discourses of ability and public performance. Practices, such as timed tests, ranking, and teacher-centered pedagogy, can transform mistakes into sources of public exposure, reinforcing a sense of inadequacy. The paper highlights how such experiences may lead students to internalize failure, adopt fixed negative identities (e.g., “not a math person”), and disengage from learning. Importantly, it emphasizes that shame emerges within power-laden classroom interactions and reflects broader cultural values in which mathematical success is equated with intelligence and personal worth. Therefore, understanding shame requires educators to interrogate the affective dimensions of pedagogy and the social hierarchies embedded in classroom life. The paper calls for teacher education programs to prepare future educators to deliver content and cultivate emotionally responsive classrooms—spaces where difficulty is met with support rather than humiliation, and where students’ emotional lives are recognized as integral to learning.