Hello Constantinos::

You are absolutely right Mathematics as any other academic subject involves culture and language. Following I am noting some of the names of researchers who have or are working in the area of diversity in mathematics education:

Banerjee 2010, Bryant 2013, Freeman 2012,Kim 2013, Lopez, 2010

In the Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Perspective 2nd Edition Edited by Emilia C. Lopez, Sara G. Nahari, Sherrie L. Proctor,Routledge – 2015 will include a chapter on Culturally Responsive Mathematics Interventions by Dr.SunA Kim.

Hope that his information will be helpful.

Sara Nahari

Well, the world has changed and those who teach in culturally and linguistically diverse settings are everywhere - take Australia for example. Well, but, I believe Math is the least to be worried about - talk about Literature (English) and there you would face a problem - as my belief numbers are of a universal nature neither culture nor language would limit them.

Regards

Theodora Issa

Many thanks for your responses. Theodora, allow me to disagree. Mathematics teaching and learning are neither language- nor culture-free, and this is what current research in the field shows us. Due to the common misconception that mathematics is just a matter of numbers, school mathematics is the most extensively researched subject by large-scale studies on pupils' attainment (see TIMSS and PISA). This, however, is not true. Even mathematics as a scientific discipline is not devoid of cultural matters.

See the work of Marta Civil, Judit Moskovitch, Bill Barton, and others.

Hello Constantinos::

You are absolutely right Mathematics as any other academic subject involves culture and language. Following I am noting some of the names of researchers who have or are working in the area of diversity in mathematics education:

Banerjee 2010, Bryant 2013, Freeman 2012,Kim 2013, Lopez, 2010

In the Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Perspective 2nd Edition Edited by Emilia C. Lopez, Sara G. Nahari, Sherrie L. Proctor,Routledge – 2015 will include a chapter on Culturally Responsive Mathematics Interventions by Dr.SunA Kim.

Hope that his information will be helpful.

Sara Nahari

See the work of Mamokgethi Setati, Mamogkethi Phakeng and the work of Anthony Essien in South Africa

Dr. Rochelle Guitirrrez, professor of math education. University of Illinois, champain-- Urbana. Also specializes in bilingual math. Dr. Walter Secada, professor of math education, university of Florida, they are Aldo well connected to similar professors across the country.

Hi Constaninos,

Your question is quite vague, what are the issues of concern? The assumption that culture has no impact on teaching and learning is naive, since this stance continues to propagate the 'colour blind' illusion of educational aims. Living in the metropolis of London, and a Mathematics teacher,& teacher educator for the past 30 years (a pluarlingual & multicultural setting), I think the importance of validating the learner in ALL curriculum areas is vital.

As

I previously mentioned, Dr, Rochelle Gutierrez, University of Illinois, Urbana. She is also well networked to just about everyone in this area in the United Stares.

I've been working for a while with immigrant children learning mathematics in Catalonia, Spain. For sure the classes were linguistically and ethnically diverse! and Maths teaching is neither culture free nor language free. If you wanted any paper that you cannot download in my research gate links, just ask me.

Hello Nuria. I've already read your papers and I find them really interesting. Your work has, to an extent, influenced me to start working in this field :-)

You can contact Dr. Murad Jurdak at the American Univeristy of Beirut ([email protected]). He has done some work in this area.

Hello Nuria,

Thanks for your posting: Claus Führer, Dara Maghdid and myself (newcomers to the field) are working on this in a higher education context. I find your research very interesting. :-)

Estimados colegas nosotros hemos estudiado la educacion matematica particularmente en la didactica con enfasis en los en el rendimiento academico y trayecto de los estudiantes en la universidad publica y fue una gran experiencia...

Constantinos, you may want to check out the organization, "Todos: Mathematics for all." http://www.todos-math.org/ It's a group of teachers and researchers who are working on these issues.

The list of researchers is long...too long for me to really help you get started. Amy Parks, David Stinson, Danny Martin, Julia Aguirre, Jo Boaler...

Many names have already been mentioned. Richard Barwell (University of Ottawa) is another I would add. There is an organsation, Mathematics Education and Society, and the proceedings of their meetings would give you lots of leads.

Constantinos, I teach a course that deals with diversity and multicultural education in working with immigrant and refugee children for ESL and mathematics preservice teachers. My colleague Betti Kreye and I have published an article about our work in the most current issue of the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

I am interested in looking at the teaching and learning of mathematics to bilingual students. In particular I examine how these students communicate their thinking in interviews about math problems and then I use this knowledge to inform the preparation of math teachers.

Contact Rochelle Gutierrez, School of Education, University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana of Walter Secada University of Miami, School of Education

Check out TODOS - Math. This is an organization that is for teaching mathematics in diverse situations.