Abstract
Culturally responsive or place-based school mathematics that focuses on Indigenous students has an established presence in the research literature. This culture-based innovation represents a historical shift from conventional approaches to mathematics education. Moreover, it has demonstratively advanced theacademic achievement forboth Indigenousand non-Indigenous students.
Its success has exposed deep fault lines in conventional school mathematics. Many mathematics educators unknowingly embrace problematic, taken-for-granted notions about their school subject that inhibit student engagement and contribute to Indigenous students’low graduation rates. However, innovative researchers and teachers have adapted or developed culture-based teaching materials and strategies that significantly reduce the problems inherent in conventional school mathematics. As a result, these innovators’ actions challenge standard curricula and instruction.
These changes coincide with another profound transformation taking place in countries with Indigenous citizens. In response to having kidnapped Indigenous children and held them in residential schools in an attempt to rid them of their Indigenous self-identities, Canada’s federal government apologized in 2008 and established a process of reconciliation (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2016) for all Canadians.
Accordingly, this article has two main goals: to (a) illustrate how critical analysis can help educators decide which taken-for-granted notions about school mathematics should continue to be embraced and which ones should be updated because they interfere with the engagement and achievement of most Indigenous students and a majority of non-Indigenous students and (b) identify concrete ways in which mathematics educators, researchers, and curriculum writers can help enhance school mathematics by drawing upon how mathematics is used in both mainstream and Indigenous cultures and in a way that simultaneously promotes both academic achievement and reconciliation. These goals lead to the following questions answered in this article:
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1 What conventional taken-for-granted notions impede student achievement?
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2 Which of these conventional notions continue to be held by many innovators who have enhanced school mathematics culturally?
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3 Which innovative taken-for-granted notions improve student academic achievement?
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4 Exactly how do researchers or teachers “see” school mathematics content “embedded” in an Indigenous artisan handwork or activity?
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5 Which notions found in conventional school mathematics continue to serve students’ interests?
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6 How can mathematics curricula mitigate systemic racism and support reconciliation?
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7 What specific actions can mathematics teachers, researchers, teacher educators, and curriculum writers take to regenerate what is essentially a Victorian-era, 19th-century elitist curriculum (for Grades 5 and higher) to a 21st-century curriculum in harmony with today’s realities?
The article advances a pluralist mathematics perspective that makes explicit the cultural nature of school mathematics within an Indigenous cross-cultural framework of respect and collaboration. Mathematics’cultural nature becomes both a context of instruction and content expressed in a curriculum.
Résumé
L’enseignement culturellement sensible des mathématiques à l’école, centré sur les étudiants autochtones, a maintenant une place établie dans la littérature de recherche. Cette innovation fondée sur la culture représente un changement historique par rapport aux approches conventionnelles en enseignement des mathématiques. De plus, il est démontré qu’elle a favorisé le succès scolaire des étudiants autochtones et non autochtones. Son succès a mis en lumière de graves lacunes dans l’enseignement traditionnel des mathématiques à l’école. En efet, de nombreux enseignants de mathématiques adoptent sans le vouloir des notions problématiques, tenues pour acquises, de leur matière scolaire, qui gênent la participation des étudiants et contribuent aux résultats médiocres des élèves autochtones. Cependant, des chercheurs et des enseignants innovateurs se sont adaptés et ont mis au point des ressources pédagogiques et des stratégies d’enseignement qui tiennent compte de la culture des étudiants et réduisent la portée des problèmes inhérents à l’enseignement conventionnel des mathématiques à l’école. Ce faisant, ces innovateurs remettent en question les curriculums et les programmes d’enseignement standards.
De tels changements coïncident avec une autre transformation qui a eu lieu dans d’autres pays qui ont une population autochtone. Après avoir kidnappé des enfants autochtones et les avoir internés dans des pensionnats afn de les priver de leur identité autochtone, le gouvernement fédéral du Canada a présenté des excuses ofcielles en 2008 et a entrepris un processus de réconciliation (Commission de vérité et réconciliation, 2016) pour tous les Canadiens. Cet article a donc deux objectifs principaux: (a) illustrer comment l’analyse critique peut aider les enseignants à décider quelles sont, parmi les notions tenues pour acquises en enseignement des mathématiques à l’école, celles qu’il faut garder et quelles sont celles qu’il convient de réviser parce qu’elles entravent la participation et le succès scolaire de la plupart des élèves autochtones ainsi que ceux d’une bonne partie des élèves non autochtones; et (b) identifer des moyens concrets pour que les enseignants de mathématiques, les chercheurs et les auteurs des curriculums puissent contribuer à améliorer les mathématiques à l’école en tirant proft des façons dont on se sert des mathématiques aussi bien dans la culture majoritaire que dans les cultures autochtones, et ce de façon à promouvoir à la fois le succès scolaire et la réconciliation. Ces objectifs m’amènent aux questions suivantes, auxquelles je réponds dans l’article:
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1 Quelles sont, parmi les notions conventionnelles tenues pour acquises, celles qui entravent le succès scolaire des étudiants?
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2 Lesquelles de ces notions conventionnelles continuent d’être soutenues par de nombreux innovateurs qui ont contribué à l’avancement culturel des mathématiques à l’école?
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3 Quelles sont, parmi les notions conventionnelles tenues pour acquises, celles qui favorisent le succès scolaire des étudiants?
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4 Comment les enseignants et les chercheurs voient-ils les contenus mathématiques à l’école comme « parties intégrantes » du travail ou des activités d’un artisan autochtone?
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5 Quelles sont, parmi les notions conventionnelles tenues pour acquises en enseignement des mathématiques à l’école, celles qui continuent de servir les intérêts des étudiants?
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6 Comment les curriculums de mathématiques peuvent-ils atténuer le racisme systémique et favoriser la réconciliation?
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7 Quelles actions les enseignants, les chercheurs, les didacticiens et les auteurs des curriculums de mathématiques peuvent-ils entreprendre pour faire évoluer ce qui est essentiellement un curriculum élitiste de l’ère victorienne (à partir de la 5e année scolaire) vers un curriculum du 21e siècle qui soit en harmonie avec les réalités d’aujourd’hui?
L’article met de l’avant une perspective pluraliste qui rend explicite la nature culturelle des mathématiques à l’école dans un cadre interculturel autochtone de respect et de collaboration. Ainsi, la nature culturelle des mathématiques devient aussi bien un contexte d’éducation qu’un contenu exprimé dans le cadre d’un curriculum.
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Aikenhead, G.S. Enhancing School Mathematics Culturally: A Path of Reconciliation. Can. J. Sci. Math. Techn. Educ. 17, 73–140 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/14926156.2017.1308043
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14926156.2017.1308043