Mathematics of students’ culture: A goal of localized ethnomathematics

Abstract

Abstract

Ethnomathematics is the mathematics of cultural groups, but often those cultural groups are “others” and “elsewhere”.  However, it is also valuable to look inward to see the interaction of mathematics and one’s own culture.  An assignment in a graduate course offers this opportunity to students.  The assignment is to find an area of the student’s personal “culture” (sometimes defined rather broadly) and find its use of mathematics.  Students are asked to write about (a) the cultural area; (b) how they are personally tied to it; and (c) how and where it uses mathematics.  In addition to the paper, students make an oral presentation.  Thus, all students learn (often surprising) aspects of their classmates’ non-professional life, and the presenter digs into areas of family and heritage that may not have been reviewed before.  Since all students are classroom mathematics teachers, finding their own cultural mathematics is not only enlightening for themselves, but also offers opportunities to include new mathematics applications in their teaching.  This paper includes much personal background that led to this assignment and is a report on more than a decade of using this it, including brief student examples.