Mercy Kazima

Mathematics education and language diversity: The 21st ICMI study

Introduction.- Challenges and opportunities for second language learners in undergraduate mathematics.- Mathematics in the hands of deaf learners and blind learners: visual-gestural-somatic means of doing and expressing.- Challenging deficit perspectives: student agency in multilingual mathematics classrooms.- Language diversity in mathematics teacher education: challenges across three countries.- Impact of differing grammatical structures in mathematics teaching and learning.- Addressing multi-language diversity in mathematics teacher education programs.- Language diversity and new media: issues of multimodality and performance.- Making use of multiple (non-shared) first languages: state and need of research and development in the European language context.- Purposefully relating multilingual registers - building theory and teaching strategies for bilingual learners based on an integration of three traditions.- Trends in mathematics education in multilingual contexts for indigenous population: experiences from Latin America.- Tensions in teaching mathematics in contexts of language diversity.- Research rationalities and the construction of the deficient multilingual mathematics learner.- Language diversity in research and its consequences.- Using ICTs to facilitate multilingual mathematics teaching and learning.- Mathematics teaching, language policy and the political role of language: perspectives from around the world.- Reflections.- Index.

Equity and Quality Issues in Mathematics Education in Malawi Schools

In this chapter, we discuss equity and quality of mathematics education in Malawi in terms of equal opportunities of education to all groups of learners and in terms of indicators of quality developed by the Malawi government. We focus on female and male learners and also on rural and urban schools. Differences between female and male learners include that the proportion of females is much less than that of males especially in secondary and higher education, and that female learners perform poorer than males in mathematics at all levels. Differences between rural and urban schools include access to resources where schools in urban areas have access to more and better human and material resources than rural schools, and that rural schools perform poorer than urban schools in mathematics national examinations. These differences indicate that these groups of learners do not have equal access and equal quality mathematics education. We discuss and critique some prospects for change which include commitment by government and associated initiatives and projects. Drawing on findings from some studies in Malawi, we argue that the indicators of quality as developed in Malawi focus on resources only and therefore take a simplistic view of equity.

Introduction: An ICMI Study On Language Diversity In Mathematics Education

This chapter provides the introduction to this ICMI Study 21 volume. It includes: a discussion of the place of this study and its topic within ICME; a discussion of what is meant by the study title; and a brief historical account of research on this topic in mathematics education. The chapter also recounts the various stages of the study, including the development of the discussion document, the study conference, and the preparation of this volume. The latter parts of the chapter include syntheses of some key research ideas emerging from the volume, implications for policy and practice and issues for further research.

Challenges and Opportunities for Second Language Learners in Undergraduate Mathematics

In this chapter, we describe the challenges and opportunities (related to mastery of the language of instruction) that second language learners face in undergraduate mathematics programs. The presence of such students is nowadays very common in many undergraduate courses due to migration, student mobility, and other factors. We provide examples of various multilingual contexts at the university level, summarize insights from international research on this topic, and present emergent proposals for helping students to overcome these challenges. This chapter highlights the importance of continuing research on the topic of second language learners in undergraduate mathematics courses so that we can offer research based approaches to improve undergraduate mathematics teaching in multilingual contexts. This chapter will provide the mathematics education research community involved in advanced mathematics, as well as instructors and policy makers, to become aware of the issues involved in undergraduate mathematics learning and teaching for second language learners.