Marta Civil

Culture and Mathematics: A community approach

This paper is based on several research efforts aimed at connecting school mathematics with everyday experiences. In particular it addresses the need to openly question the different values and beliefs associated with different forms of knowledge. It focuses on work done in working-class, minority communities and emphasizes the need to develop school learning experiences that acknowledge and build on the resources and experiences in these communities. The paper discusses two examples along those lines. One centers on a classroom of second graders (7 year olds) in which a learning module on the theme of construction allowed for the development of rich mathematical ideas within a context that was familiar to the students and the community. The second example focuses on working with parents from a dialogic learning perspective. Through the development of a two-way dialogue parents are seen as intellectual resources whose experiences and ideas inform the development of mathematics workshops.

Immigrant Parents' Perspectives on their Children's Mathematics Education

This paper draws on two research studies with similar theoretical backgrounds, in two different settings, Barcelona (Spain) and Tucson (USA). From a sociocultural perspective, the analysis of mathematics education in multilingual and multiethnic classrooms requires us to consider contexts, such as the family context, that have an influence on these classrooms and its participants. We focus on immigrant parents’ perspectives on their children’s mathematics education and we primarily discuss two topics: (1) their experiences with the teaching of mathematics, and (2) the role of language (native language and second language). The two topics are explored with reference to the immigrant students’ or their parents’ former educational systems (the “before”) and their current educational systems (the “now”). Parents and schools understand educational systems, classroom cultures and students’ attainment differently, as influenced by their sociocultural histories and contexts.

Understanding Interruptions in the Mathematics Classroom: Implications for Equity.

The article is based on an extensive microethnographic study (Planas, 2001) that was focused on students aged 15–16 years who exhibited a high number of interruptions in their participation in the mathematics classroom. Our research points to the importance of considering how the students construe normative meanings for the classroom episodes, and how they value others and the knowledge construed. We argue that some interruptions in the students’ participation can be understood as an active contestation to the classroom norms and to the perceived valorisations. Broadening the understanding of the learning opportunities for all the students requires studying further how the classroom sociocultural context and participants’ valorisations mediate both the participation processes and the construction of mathematical knowledge.

Funds of distributed knowledge

Contents: Preface. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, C. Amanti, Introduction. Part I: Theoretical Underpinnings. N. Gonzalez, Beyond Culture: The Hybridity of Funds of Knowledge. C. Velez-Ibanez, J. Greenberg, Formation and Transformation of Funds of Knowledge. L. Moll, C. Amanti, D. Neff, N. Gonzalez, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, M.F. Tenery, A. Rivera, P. Rendon, C. Amanti, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching in Latino Households. Part II: Teachers as Researchers. M.F. Tenery, La Visita. C. Amanti, Beyond a Beads and Feathers Approach. M. Hensley, Empowering Parents of Multicultural Backgrounds. P. Sandoval-Taylor, Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Funds of Knowledge-Based Curriculum Module. A. Browning-Aiken, Border-Crossings: Funds of Knowledge Within an Immigrant Household. J. Messing, Social Reconstructions of Schooling: Teacher Evaluations of What They Learned From Participation in the Funds of Knowledge Project. Part III: Translocations: New Contexts, New Directions. M. Brenden, Funds of Knowledge and Team Ethnography: Reciprocal Approaches. P. Buck, P.S. Sylvester, Pre-Service Teachers Enter Urban Communities: Coupling Funds of Knowledge Research and Critical Pedagogy in Teacher Education. C. Mercado, Reflections on the Study of Households in New York City and Long Island: A Different Route, a Common Destination. N. Gonzalez, R. Andrade, M. Civil, L. Moll, Funds of Distributed Knowledge. Part IV: Concluding Commentary. L. Moll, Reflections and Possibilities.

Participation of non-dominant students in argumentation in the mathematics classroom

This article focuses on argumentation in mathematics classrooms in two different geographic contexts, the US and New Zealand. Drawing on data from a case with immigrant students (Pāsifika) in NZ and a case with Mexican American students in the US, we argue for the need to study the concept of argumentation through a cultural and language lens. Our analysis across the two cases points to common features that supported students’ engagement in argumentation. Building relationships and encouraging and supporting students to be themselves are seen as resources for argumentation. The similarities across two very different contexts are striking. As we think of how to develop environments that support non-dominant students’ participation in mathematical argumentation, we may want to learn from and build on students’ cultural ways of being.

Collaborative Practice with Parents

This work shares the experiences of an ongoing collaboration between Mexican immigrant women, the authors, and the principal and the librarian at a middle school in Tucson, Arizona. The collaboration entailed the establishment of rapport through respectful interactions between mothers, school personnel and university researchers. It also required challenging otherwise slanted forms of participation as a consequence of hegemonic practices that make passive forms of participation seem otherwise “normal.” Mathematics workshops for parents, most of whom were mothers, for engaging in a two-way dialogue about mathematics became the form for moving along the collaboration continuum. In this continuum the workshops served as the forum for moving from the role of parent-as-caretaker to parent-as-intellectual and finally parent-as-teacher. In this manner we strove to define a collaborative practice with parents on a more egalitarian and informed platform.

Mathematics Teaching and Learning of Immigrant Students

This chapter is based on a paper I presented at the 11th International Congress on Mathematical Education as part of Survey Team 5: Mathematics education in multicultural and multilingual environments, chaired by Alan Bishop. Our team ended up dividing the survey team theme into four topics and I was in charge of surveying research related to the mathematics teaching and learning of immigrant students. The other topics were: Multicultural teacher education, particularly with indigenous teachers (Maria do Carmo Domite); A review of research on multilingualism in mathematics education in Africa, 2000–2007 (Mamokgethi Setati); Cultural conflicts, ethnomathematical developments, and marginalized learners (Alan Bishop). To address my topic, I drew on proceedings of recent international conferences that I knew had presentations related to mathematics education and immigrant students.

Whose Language is It

In the last decade we have intensified our work on mathematics education and language diversity in our two contexts of research: Tucson, AZ, and Barcelona, Catalonia. The two of us are interested in the role and use of languages in scenarios of mathematical teaching and learning. From the perspective of our investigations, this interest entails different interpretive methods and large collections of data.

Mathematical Modeling and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Mathematical modeling and culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) are both pedagogical approaches that rely on students’ knowledge of everyday situations, yet mathematics education research has not fully attended to the ways in which they can be united in the classroom. We use an interpretation of culture as students’ lived experiences, a perspective drawn from the Funds of Knowledge approach, which can uncover knowledge that is relevant for rich mathematical tasks and that can support socially conscious reflection. This chapter proposes a new pedagogical model, suggesting that the cycle of mathematical modeling provides key moments to access students’ culturally based knowledge and that this approach can address weaknesses in typical implementations of culturally relevant pedagogy. Mathematical modeling asks students to complete a problem-solving cycle involving sense-making, developing problem-solving tools, interpretation and validation of results, and further cycles of model improvement. The early stage of sense-making and the reflective stages at the end of the first modeling cycle are key points at which teachers can plan discussions to foreground students’ cultural knowledge and critical consciousness. We provide examples of this approach through a task on modeling neighborhood fence designs, and we provide reflections on implementing this approach with preservice secondary teachers in an early stage of their pedagogical education.

Preface to “Immigrant Parents’ Perspectives on Their Children’s Mathematics Education”

In the article originally published in 2005 we addressed immigrant parents’ perspectives of the teaching of mathematics in two geographic contexts, Barcelona (Spain) and Tucson (USA). The article illuminates two specific aspects of marginalization of those who move to a new country with hopes of a better life, including education, for their children. Since then we have expanded upon our work in these two specific aspects—parents’ perceptions about the teaching and learning of mathematics and the role of language in mathematics instruction. We argue that these two issues are central to the marginalization of immigrant parents’ and therefore, their children in the area of mathematics education. Therefore it is critical for educators to understand and address these issues to improve the mathematics education of immigrant students.