I ACTUALLY STARTED TO SCREAM: DOING SCHOOL MATHEMATICS HOMEWORK

Homework is an activity done by large numbers of students all over the world. Many concerns have been raised including, especially in primary schools, whether any academic benefit is gained and whether parents have appropriate resources to actively support/teach their children. In this paper, we explore the stories that two ten year old girls tell about doing their mathematics homework with family help and the pressures that it puts on them to take control of their own learning. We discuss the opportunities and constraints to students doing homework as a consequence of the social and institutional relations that they operate within.