Mathematics is relevant externally and internally to those who create and use it. Nevertheless, this relevancy is too often not experienced by students. They clarify this to mathematics educators, who are familiar with this perennial, recurring challenge from students: “When Am I ever going to use this math?” Of that question, what sense do mathematics educators and researchers make? Research has mainly focused on the external relevance of mathematics, including cultural significance, ethnomathematics, and contemporary applications of mathematics. Yet, students might also be signaling internal concerns, such as failing to understand the mathematics at hand without wanting to call attention to their lack of understanding or feeling disconnected from reproducing ideas and procedures whose origins are external to their intellect. To explore the students’ internal concerns, recent research has focused on psychological categories such as identity and belonging but has largely overlooked issues of social alienation.

The proposed oral presentation will discuss theoretical research using the political-economic category of alienation and its four subcategories to understand underlying students’ experiences of mathematical learning that lead them to ask—“When Am I ever going to use this math?”—and how mathematics instruction can address students’ alienation. Understanding how alienation as both a process and outcome leads students to be estranged from mathematics will augment how mathematics educators address improvement in mathematics instruction to help evermore students feel engaged and connected to mathematics.

Keywords: Mathematics Education, Alienation, Intellectual Production.