“The Execution Stage”: A Phenomenographic Study of Math Anxiety in Students’ Narratives

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of mathematics anxiety among students, analyzing its destructive impact on their identity and educational path. The main objective of the qualitative research, embedded in the interpretive paradigm, was to reconstruct the subjective meanings that youth assign to the experience of anxiety toward this academic discipline. The results of the in-depth interviews reveal a drastic discrepancy between the declared mission of student development and oppressive educational practice, where mathematics lessons emerge as a space dominated by a focus on testing, a rushed curriculum, and a lack of alignment of requirements with special educational needs. The authoritarian attitude of educators proves to be a key source of anxiety and traumatic social exposure at the blackboard, triggering an immediate cognitive paralysis and severe psychosomatic reactions in the participants. The effects of this phenomenon permanently deform their school identity through the painful internalization of the labels “stupid” and “inferior.” The formulated conclusions constitute a critical manifesto calling for the immediate humanization of teaching methods, the rejection of the standardization of requirements, and the creation of a school climate based on emotional safety.