• Celebrates the life and work of Ubiratan D’Ambrosio

• Contains chapters by international scholars

• Includes examples of past, present, and ongoing (future) studies

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Leveraging Mathematical Modeling for Action and Education Toward Social Justice - Oaxaca, Mexico May 2025

About this book

This book is about the unique, sophisticated, and rigorous study of mathematics in Latin America developed over centuries of cultural exchange between Europe, North, and South America. More specifically, the book explores the tradition of mathematical modelling, introduced a century ago. This modelling was adapted to assist members of distinct communities to draw information about their own realities through the elaboration of representations, which generate mathematical knowledge that deals with creativity and invention. The book provides empirical evidence that a category of mathematical modelling developed in Latin America assesses the horizontal and reciprocal relations between mathematics (school/non-school contexts) and the real world. These relations provide an epistemological and ontological change, where mathematical knowledge of the others is recognized on a horizontal plane. Further, they oblige mathematics teachers and students to understand as a community of knowledge thatbuilds their own mathematical categories of their environment governed by the reciprocal relationships between academic knowledge and functional knowledge. The dimensions of the relationships make up a frame of reference that guides educational change in mathematics. The book presents an inquiry-based approach of three Latin American modelling programs: ethnomodelling, transversality of knowledge, and reasoned decision-making. Each one, with its respective theoretical and methodological foundations related to ethnomathematics and mathematical modelling, socioepistemology, and the attribution of meaning to learning. Undoubtedly, the three mathematical modelling programs, independently, provide educational gains, each with its levels of specificity and loyal to its philosophical, theoretical, and methodological principles. However, the book places them together, organized by axes, to define a corpus of mathematical knowledge that envisions profound educational change through the development of different approaches of mathematical modelling. The authors of the 18 chapters in this book, who represent the diversity of Latin America, are from eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico. They were invited to share their ideas, perspectives, and discuss investigations that represent a rich sample of three Latin American perspectives on mathematical modelling

La educación de la matemática requiere cambios sustanciales que favorezcan el bienestar social en diversas dimensiones: entre las más importantes la equidad de los saberes matemáticos para incluir epistemologías tradicionalmente excluidas de la matemática escolar. En este libro se plantea, con evidencia empírica, que hay una categoría de modelación matemática propia de la gente, propicia para ser estudiada con fines didácticos. Esta categoría, valora las relaciones horizontales y recíprocas entre la matemática y el mundo real. Además, hace reflexionar sobre la importancia de concluir investigaciones latinoamericanas como resistencia al centralismo europeo. La axiomática de la matemática universal, pero los usos y significados que propician su aprehensión o no. Se presentan tres programas de modelación matemática, cuyos nacimientos surgieron en Latinoamérica, en formas distintas: Argentina, Brasil y México. Cada programa aborda los usos y significados del conocimiento matemático fuera de la escuela, que emergen en comunidades: etnias o pobladores, estudiantes con compromisos de bienestar social, y estudiantes y profesionistas de diversos dominios de conocimiento. Los tres programas son puestos como ejes para generar un espacio tridimensional que conforma un corpus del saber matemático para el cambio educativo. El lector encontrará un tratamiento de la matemática escolar construido en Latinoamérica, permeado de una cosmovisión que responde a la otra parte olvidada, la inclusión, la democracia y la equidad, que, además, favorece un conocimiento matemático verdaderamente educativo dada la familiaridad de quienes aprenden y enseñan con la epistemología puesta en juego.

De acordo com as diversas perspectivas culturais e contextos internacionais, este livro destaca muitas interlocuções polissêmicas da Etnomatemática como um Programa de educação matemática com distintas áreas do conhecimento etnográfico, principalmente em relação às muitas concepções teóricas, filosóficas e metodológicas que cada um de nós traz de nossas experiências fora da academia e que podem promover um senso de curiosidade e cidadania em nossa busca comum por paz e justiça social. Em consonância com as diversas perspectivas culturais e contextos internacionais, este livro destaca muitas interlocuções polissêmicas da Etnomatemática como um Programa de educação matemática com diferentes áreas do conhecimento etnoxista, principalmente em relação às múltiplas concepções teóricas, filosóficas e metodológicas que cada um de nós traz de nossas experiências fora da academia e que podem promover um senso de curiosidade e cidadania em nossa busca comum por paz e justiça social.

Abstract

One of the major dilemmas in mathematics education in contemporary society is its hidden bias towards a western orientation in its scholarly and research paradigms. While being mindful of emerging glocalization of science, mathematics, religion, art, music, and other aspects of a given culture, the use of innovative or what may seem alternative approaches and methodologies is necessary to record historically diverse forms of mathematical knowledge that occur in distinct cultural contexts. With 500 years of colonization of science and mathematics, it seems important at this critical stage of human development that people look at diverse traditions in the field. So, it is that the authors have come to apply fundamentally different philosophies, modelling techniques, and an ethnomathematical perspective to the mathematics curriculum. It is the linking of mathematics and culture that the authors find appropriate and necessary for a deeper understanding of the development of mathematical knowledge aimed at providing a holistic comprehension of human behavior. It is important to develop an understanding of the role of ethnomathematics and modelling processes in the development of an innovative theoretical basis for ethnomodelling, which uses emic, etic, and dialogic approaches in its investigation process. In this theoretical chapter, the authors demonstrate how ethnomodelling is a pedagogical action for the process of teaching and learning mathematics that challenges the prevailing way of the universality of mathematics and the thinking involved therein.