The Concept of Culture in Critical Mathematics Education

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of a chapter published in The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77760-3A well-known critique in the research literature of critical mathematics education suggests that framing educational questions in cultural terms can encourage ethnic-cultural essentialism, obscure conflicts within cultures and promote an ethnographic or anthropological stance towards learners. Nevertheless, we believe that some of the obstacles to learning mathematics are cultural. ‘Stereotype threat’, for example, has a basis in culture. Consequently, the aims of critical mathematics education cannot be seriously pursued without including a cultural approach in educational research. We argue that an adequate conception of culture is available and should include normative/descriptive and material/ideal dyads as dialectical moments

On the relevance of the mathematics curriculum to young people

In this paper we draw upon focus group data from a large study of learner trajectories through 14-19 mathematics education to think about the notion of relevance in the mathematics curriculum. Drawing on data from three socially distanced sites we explore how different emphases on what might be termed practical, process and/or professional forms of relevance affect the experiences and aspirations of learners of mathematics. We consider whether an emphasis on practical relevance in schools serving relatively disadvantaged communities might aid the reproduction of students’ social position. This leads us to suggest that a fourth category of curriculum relevance – political relevance – is largely missing from classrooms

The owl spreads its wings: global and international education within the local from critical perspectives

Within an era of a New Knowledge Society, assumptions abound regarding the ‘goodness' and justice of global interconnections and distributions of knowledge through international educational organizations and structures worldwide. Just as George Bush Jr. in attempting to justify the invasion of Iraq made claim to the democratic goodness of the US ‘spreading their freedoms' in the interests of an all-encompassing democratization of the world, so the assumption that sharing educational knowledge, especially an ‘all-knowing North' with a ‘helpless South' is without question for the greater good of all humanity

Engaging with issues of emotionality in mathematics teacher education for social justice

This article focuses on the relationship between social justice, emotionality and mathematics teaching in the context of the education of prospective teachers of mathematics. A relational approach to social justice calls for giving attention to enacting socially-just relationships in mathematics classrooms. Emotionality and social justice in teaching mathematics variously intersect, interrelate or interweave. An intervention, usng creative action methods, with a cohort of prospective teachers addressing these issues is described to illustrate the connection between emotionality and social justice in the context of mathematics teacher education. Creative action methods involve a variety of dramatic, interactive and experiential tools that can promote personal and group engagement and embodied reflection. The intervention aimed to engage the prospective teachers with some key issues for social justice in mathematics education through dialogue about the emotionality of teaching and learning mathematics. Some of the possibilities and limits of using such methods are considered

Problem solving, exercises, and explorations in mathematics textbooks: A historical perspective

This paper analyses the tasks proposed in several Portuguese mathematics textbooks, from the 19th to the 21st century. A look at the nature and intended purpose of these tasks raises interesting issues about school mathematics teaching and learning. Has the meaning of terms such as “problem” and “exercise” been always the same? What other terms have been used in textbooks to designate mathematics tasks? What were the reasons for the changes? The analysis of the evolution that occurred in the terminology as well as in the nature of the tasks proposed to the students provides elements to reflect about what the changes that have occurred in mathematics teaching and learning and how some changes are more apparent than real.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Boundary objects and boundary crossing for numeracy teaching

In this paper, we share analysis of an episode of a pre-service teacher’s handling of a map artefact within his practicum teaching of ‘Mathematical Literacy’ in South Africa. Mathematical Literacy, as a post-compulsory phase subject in the South African curriculum, shares many of the aims of numeracy as described in the international literature— including approaches based on the inclusion of real life contexts and a trajectory geared towards work, life and citizenship. Our attention in this paper is focused specifically on artefacts at the boundary of mathematical and contextual activities. We use analysis of the empirical handling of artefacts cast as ‘boundary objects’ to argue the need for ‘boundary crossing’ between mathematical and contextual activities as a critical feature of numeracy teaching. We pay particular attention to the differing conventions and extents of applicability of rules associated with boundary artefacts when working with mathematical or contextual perspectives. Our findings suggest the need to consider boundary objects more seriously within numeracy teacher education, with specific attention to the ways in which they are configured on both sides of the boundary in order to deal effectively with explanations and interactions in classrooms aiming to promote numeracy