Culture, worldview and transformative philosophy of mathematics education in Nepal: a cultural-philosophical inquiry

This thesis portrays my multifaceted and emergent inquiry into the protracted problem of culturally decontextualised mathematics education faced by students of Nepal, a culturally diverse country of south Asia with more than 90 language groups. I generated initial research questions on the basis of my history as a student of primary, secondary and university levels of education in Nepal, my Master’s research project, and my professional experiences as a teacher educator working in a university of Nepal between 2004 and 2006. Through an autobiographical excavation of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education, I came up with several emergent research questions, leading to six key themes of this inquiry: (i) hegemony of the unidimensional nature of mathematics as a body of pure knowledge, (ii) unhelpful dualisms in mathematics education, (iii) disempowering reductionisms in curricular and pedagogical aspects, (iv) narrowly conceived ‘logics’ that do not account for meaningful lifeworld-oriented thinking in mathematics teaching and learning, (v) uncritical attitudes towards the image of curriculum as a thing or object, and (vi) narrowly conceived notions of globalisation, foundationalism and mathematical language that give rise to a decontextualised mathematics teacher education program.With these research themes at my disposal my aim in this research was twofold. Primarily, I intended to explore, explain and interpret problems, issues and dilemmas arising from and embedded in the research questions. Such an epistemic activity of articulation was followed by envisioning, an act of imagining futures together with reflexivity, perspectival language and inclusive vision logics.In order to carry out both epistemic activities – articulating and envisioning – I employed a multi-paradigmatic research design space, taking on board mainly the paradigms of criticalism, postmodernism, interpretivism and integralism. The critical paradigm offered a critical outlook needed to identify the research problem, to reflect upon my experiences as a mathematics teacher and teacher educator, and to make my lifetime’s subjectivities transparent to readers, whereas the paradigm of postmodernism enabled me to construct multiple genres for cultivating different aspects of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education. The paradigm of interpretivism enabled me to employ emergence as the hallmark of my inquiry, and the paradigm of integralism acted as an inclusive meta-theory of the multi-paradigmatic design space for portraying my vision of an inclusive mathematics education in Nepal.Within this multi-paradigmatic design space, I chose autoethnography and small p philosophical inquiry as my methodological referents. Autoethnography helped generate the research text of my cultural-professional contexts, whereas small p philosophical inquiry enabled me to generate new knowledge via a host of innovative epistemologies that have the goal of deepening understanding of normal educational practices by examining them critically, identifying underpinning assumptions, and reconstructing them through scholarly interpretations and envisioning. Visions cultivated through this research include: (i) an inclusive and multidimensional image of the nature of mathematics as an im/pure knowledge system, (ii) the metaphors of thirdspace and dissolution for conceiving an inclusive mathematics education, (iii) a multilogical perspective for morphing the hegemony of reductionism-inspired mathematics education, (iv) an inclusive image of mathematics curriculum as montage that provides a basis for incorporating different knowledge systems in mathematics education, and (v) perspectives of glocalisation, healthy scepticism and multilevel contextualisation for constructing an inclusive mathematics teacher education program

Transformative Learning: An Approach to Understand Participatory Action Research

Transformative learning is to observe one’s experience that makes one conscious of one’s knowledge and one’s changing view in the learning community. This paper presents reflection on transformation in learning both the theory and practice of participatory action research as experienced through field visits and interacting with the participants. Critical reflective journal entries and discussions on workshops provided source of data. The purpose of this paper is to provide understanding of participatory action research from traditional conventional research and how reflection helped unfold the ideologies of participatory action research. Following the cycle of participatory action research, authors explored the need of the participation of all the members of this study. Through collaborative learning, social constructive learning, experiential learning as well as transformative learning, this paper explains ideologies of participatory action research, which are co-construction of knowledge, change in attitude to bring transformation in practice, and empowerment of participants

Teachers\u27 Perception of Social Justice in Mathematics Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to explore mathematics teachers\u27 perception of social justice in mathematics classrooms. We applied interpretive qualitative method for data collection, analysis, and interpretation through iterative process. We administered in-depth semi-structured interviews to capture the perceptions of three mathematics teachers about social justice in mathematics classroom at three public secondary schools in Kathmandu. We carried out multiple layers of thematic analysis and interpretation of the narratives from the interview data. Altogether five themes on perception of social justice emerged from the analysis of the data. These themes were associated with - equality, equity, fairness, social process, and caring students. Implications of the study have been discussed at the end

A Third Space Research Methodology through the Metaphor of Mokshya

In this paper we argue that research paradigms arising from the Western Modern Worldview (WMW) orients research enterprise to serve metaphysics of presence (positive evidence), propositional, deductive and analytical genre and logics (Luitel, 2003), thereby privileging knowing as misappropriating local knowledge system. When WMW fails to understand the connectedness within the local worldviews they are alike the colonization. In many researches are taken for granted to put all in boxes creating a dualism of West (colonized) and Non-west (decolonized). However, it the dualism of West and rest hardly recognizes the multiple realities of local people. At the same time I argue that valuing local ways of thinking and being is must in research methodology. In so doing I envision Third Space Methodology where we can realize the importance of both West and Rest drawing from their best practices. Developing such a methodology allows all voices to be heard but gives precedence to the Indigenous/local voice. This is why we suggest a Third Space (Mokshya- an interest of emancipation) methodology through breaking the hierarchies of West and local. We use a metaphor of Mokshyaa describing Eastern (Hindu/Baudhhist /Jain/Sikhs) epistemic view to be ware from the colonial and decolonial parameters of research. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jer.v3i2.8400 Journal of Education and Research August 2013, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 96-11

Strategies for Promoting Social Justice in the Math Classroom

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the strategies used by the teachers for promoting social justice in the math classroom. An interpretive qualitative research method was applied for data construction, analysis and interpretation through an iterative process. Three math teachers and their three students (one for each teacher) were selected as the research participants purposively from three public secondary schools in Kathmandu. Qualitative narratives were generated through in-depth interviews and classroom observations with each participant. The data analysis went through multiple layers of thematic analyses and interpretations of the narratives from the interview data. Altogether six themes emerged from the analysis of the data. These themes include--counseling and encouragement, group work and cooperative learning, linking mathematics to daily life, personalized way of instruction, promotion of joyful environment, and class work and projects

Kincheloe's Bricolage: A View from Within Transformative Educational Research

Today, we are writing a different type of letter, one that celebrates the important karmic culmination of your recent lifetime and that presents our view on a number of issues you have discussed in “Describing the bricolage: Conceptualising a new rigor in qualitative research” (Kincheloe, 2001). It was this paper that introduced your textual self to me (Bal Chandra) for the first time in 2003 when, during my master’s study at an Australian university, I was preparing to conduct an auto|ethnographic inquiry into the nature of culturally decontextualised mathematics education in Nepal

Envisioning Transition Towards Transformative Mathematics Education: A Nepali Educator's Autoethnographic Perspective.

The proposed chapter begins with illustrating how we have termed the Nepali society, and the education system adopted by it, as transitional on the basis of an unstable political system, cultural fluidity, changing economic policies and practices and the growing import of new technologies. With more focus on narrative genre of representation, we shall explore and critique the existing classroom micropolitics in accordance with the notion that Nepal should embrace a critical mathematics education perspective that upholds cultural pluralism and a strong democratic ethos by adopting ethics of communication that promote: (a) respect for the individual learner as a meaning maker and stakeholder in the future of both local and global societies and (b) good social dynamics for negotiating the construction of meaning and promoting critical literacy. Drawing on socio-cultural and public educational perspectives, we shall explore some practical ways to promote the cultural contextualisation of mathematics that can contribute to the development of a sustainable mathematics education program for the primary and secondary schools in Nepal

Understanding and Encountering the Ethics of Self and Others in Autoethnography: Challenging the Extant and Exploring Possibilities

In cultural and institutional contexts, autoethnography examines personal and professional experiences. While conducting and representing autoethnography, these considerations raise ethical challenges for self and others. This expository paper examines and explores the various forms of the ethics of self and others in autoethnography in South Asian contexts. Furthermore, ethical positions in an autoethnographic inquiry are presented and explored by challenging the extant and exploring the possibilities. Moreover, ethical standards are maintained based on the first author\u27s experiences. We also realized that the emerging challenges of the ethics of self and others in autoethnography are ongoing and real. Likewise, we brought the first author’s lived experiences of conducting autoethnographic inquiry in his personal, professional, and cultural contexts (i.e., South Asian contexts) as a guiding principle. Above all, following the foundational understanding of ethics in autoethnography, one may engage with others in the account of self-experiences. The paper concludes by highlighting possible procedural and situational ethics pertaining to Dharma and Karma in autoethnography as a transformative educational research methodology (Luitel & Dahal, 2020) that might be demonstrated while conducting an autoethnographic inquiry