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Mathematics has traditionally been regarded by many educators as culturally neutral, even though most classrooms use a math that's based in Western theorist thought. But a growing movement within math reform takes a different view. This approach is commonly referred to as ethnomathematics.
For many years, classroom instruction in mathematics drew primarily from Western sources of knowledge - Pythagoras, Euclid, and others. This fact, coupled with the view among many students that math is only something you do in the classroom and is disconnected from one's individual heritage or everyday life, gave rise to a new way to think about and teach mathematics - ethnomathematics. Ethnomathematics takes into consideration the interactions between human culture and mathematics. First coined by Ubiratan D'Ambrosio in 1985, ethnomathemtics represents "the math practiced among cultural groups such as national-tribal societies, labor groups, children of a certain age bracket, professional classes and so on." Rather than see culture as separate from mathematics, this school of thought treats culture as integral to the learning and teaching of math. In a recent issue of Teaching Children Mathematics, D'Ambrosio points to the goals of ethnomathematics:
Professor Darrah Chavey at Beloit College describes seven views of what ethnomathematics is all about.2 They include:
These seven views illustrate the interconnectedness of mathematics and culture. Culture influences mathematics, and mathematics influences culture. Another way to think about ethnomathematics is to look at it from two vantage points - 1) as others' mathematics practice and 2) as our own mathematics practice.3 The first category includes what is commonly referred to as "multicultural" mathematics, where teachers draw from mathematical activities from many cultures around the globe. Claudia Zaslavsky takes this view of mathematics one step further, moving from add-on activities based on diverse cultural practices to a more inclusive classroom model: "What is needed is a revision of the whole curriculum, all subject areas, to inlude those groups -women, working people, ethnic/racial groups - whose contributions and place in history have been distorted, marginalized, or ignored completely."4 When we think about ethnomathematics as our own mathematics practice, the pedagogical approach starts with having teachers and students think about how they use mathematics in everyday situations. One way to do this is to have students keep a log for a day, a week, or some other period of time of how they think they use mathematics. Teachers then take this information and use it as a base from which to create contexts for problem solving.
Reorienting teaching and learning to include ethnomathematics can help engage and excite students about learning and encourages them to see themselves as mathematicians. Students' own cultural experiences are validated, and in fact serve as an essential component of classroom activities rather than as an add-on.
For further readings on ethnomathematics, check out:
2 From http://cs.beloit.edu/~chavey/M103/7Views.html
3Masingila, Joanna and K. Jamie King. (1997). "Using Ethnomathematics as a Classroom Tool." in Janet trentacosta, Ed. Multicultural and Gender Equity in the Mathematics Classroom. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
4Zaslavsky, Claudia. (1996). The Multicultural Math Classroom: Bringing in the World.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, pp. 4.
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