What is the responsibility of mathematics education to the Indigenous students that it serves?

Abstract

Although refuted many times, the commonly accepted story about Indigenous communities in Australia is that they had few counting word and thus were lacking in ways to quantify amounts. In this paper, we use the case of quantifying to discuss how Indigenous mathematics can be used, not just to help Indigenous students transition into the classroom but also back into their home communities. We argue that mathematics education must take seriously its responsibility to support Indigenous students to gain school mathematics and also to help maintain the use of traditional mathematical ideas. If this does not occur, mathematics educators will contribute, intentionally or unintentionally to the loss of Indigenous knowledge that present and future generations of Indigenous people will hold them responsible for.

The Mathematics Performance of Aboriginal Pupils for Computation and Word Problem Items in Using Academic and Community Languages

“…In many parts of the world, Aboriginal students largely use their community language for communication (Meaney & Evans, 2013), resulting in low proficiency in the academic language used in classroom instruction (Sani & Idris, 2013). When mathematics is assessed in the academic language that students have limited proficiency in, the Aboriginal students' mathematical performance is greatly compromised (Sani & Idris, 2013).…”

What if I was harmful? Reflecting on the ethical tensions associated with teaching the dominant mathematics

“…Trinick et al (2015) underline the cultural clash that occurs when indigenous students' cultures intersect with the culture that surrounds the mathematics taught in classrooms. In another paper, Meaney and Evans (2013) claim that mathematics education "must take seriously its responsibility to support Indigenous students to gain school mathematics and also to help maintain the use of traditional mathematical ideas." Shaking the core of our ethical comfort zone, they warn us that "If this does not occur, mathematics educators will contribute, intentionally or unintentionally, to the loss of Indigenous knowledge that present and future generations of Indigenous people will hold them responsible for" (p. 481).…”

Mathematics Education as a Matter of Achievement

“…As Cooper and Dunne (2000) have found, mathematics tasks in UK tests that contained elements from some everyday practices that looked familiar to students from workingclass families, disadvantaged these students as they (mistakenly) drew too much on their experience from those practices. Similarly, the substance and form of conducting mathematics achievement tests in Australia has been shown to contribute to achievement disparities between particular groups of Indigenous students and other students (Meaney and Evans 2013).…”