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Cultural Diversity in Mathematics Education

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Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education

Introduction

Cultural diversity in mathematics education is a widely used expression to discuss questions around why students from different cultural, ethnic, social, economic, and linguistic groups perform differently in their school mathematics. These questions are not new in cultural perspectives to mathematics education developed since the late 1980s (Bishop 1988) and in cultural approaches to mathematical cognition (Cole 1996). However, until recently issues of cultural diversity were considered to be out there in other non-Western cultures or to be issues of marginalized and poor groups in society. Globalization changed this perspective. With changes in communication, technologies, and unprecedented levels of migration, cultures have become increasingly complex, connected, and heterogeneous. One of the major impacts on education has been a substantial change in the cultural and ethnic composition of the school population.

Schools and classrooms become places where teachers,...

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Correspondence to Guida de Abreu .

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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de Abreu, G. (2014). Cultural Diversity in Mathematics Education. In: Lerman, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4978-8_37

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