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Exploring cultural dynamism of ethnomodelling as a pedagogical action for students from minority cultural groups

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Abstract

Mathematics education is inherent to the discourse of globalization, which often states that mathematical knowledge is universal. Certain global mathematical techniques and procedures found in many mathematics curricula around the world often discourage students to engage in creating their own mathematical knowledge. This suggests that dominant cultural values are defined as universal or at the very least labeled as normative, while peripheral mathematical knowledge is tagged as merely simplistic, primitivistic, folkloristic, and/or as forms of obsolete systems. Our main purpose here is to discuss how ethnomodelling promotes a holistic understanding of local and global approaches in mathematics education, which contributes to the development of a glocal comprehension of mathematical practices developed by members of distinct cultures, which means placing them at the center of the educational process. Through the development of ethnomodelling, this pedagogical action promotes connections between day-to-day knowledge and systematized school curricula. Thus, this theoretical article demonstrates how we might consider situating local mathematical practices (margins) at the center (glocal) of the mathematics education process by decentering globalized mathematical knowledge in the search for peace and social justice.

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Fig. 1

Source: Adapted from D’Ambrosio (2006c)

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Notes

  1. According to Rhodes (1995), primitivism refers to cultures believed to lack cultural, technological, or economic sophistication, or development; it has been used historically to justify conquer members of other cultural groups. In cultural terms, this means a deficiency in those qualities that have been used historically in the West as indicators of civilization.

  2. Tacit mathematical knowledge is related to the ways in which students use mathematical concepts by relating them to their own experiences, beliefs, and cultural values. The main components of tacit knowledge are mental symbolism, mathematical language, methods, symbolic operations, strategies, procedures, and techniques locally developed, which are often applicable in solving contextualized problems (Orey & Rosa, 2021).

  3. Intracultural encounters describe experiences between at least two people who are from the same culture or have culturally similar backgrounds.

  4. A cultural trait is a socially learned system of beliefs, values, traditions, symbols, and meanings that the members of a specific culture acquire throughout history. It identify and coalesce a cultural group because traits express the cohesiveness of the member of the group (Rosa & Orey, 2013).

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  1. Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Milton Rosa & Daniel Clark Orey

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  1. Milton Rosa
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Rosa, M., Orey, D.C. Exploring cultural dynamism of ethnomodelling as a pedagogical action for students from minority cultural groups. ZDM Mathematics Education (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-023-01539-7

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