Philip Clarkson

Mathematics Education in International and Global Contexts

Mathematics education is arguably the most internationalised subject in higher education. This is reflected in the number of international conferences, exchanges and publications in the field. While a number of publications have addressed the internationalisation of mathematics education theory and research, the term globalisation is perhaps less familiar in the mathematics education literature. This chapter presents a theoretical construct towards the study of globalisation and internationalisation in mathematics education and identifies some key issues under each construct and that may require further discussion and research. These issues are illustrated by three case studies from Australia, East and Southeast Asia and Latin America. The chapter concludes by a discussion of global collaboration in mathematics education.

Iranian bilingual students reported use of language switching when doing mathematics

Teachers are often unaware that bilingual students often switch between their languages when doing mathematics. Little research has been undertaken into this phenomenon. Results are reported here from a study of language switching by sixteen Year 4/5 Iranian bilingual students as they solved mathematical problems in an interview situation. Reasons given for switching between English and their L1 language (Persian or Farsi) were the difficulty of the problem, familiarity with particular numbers or words they used habitually in Persian, and being in the Persian school or interview environment. It seems likely that these Iranian bilingual students will continue to use some form of language switching to help them understand and complete mathematical tasks in mainstream classrooms.

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION ERRORS: A FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Comprehension errors made when attempting mathematical word problems have been noted as one of the high frequency categories in error analysis. This error category has been assumed to be language based. The study reported here provides some support for the linkage of comprehension errors to measures of language competency. Further, there is evidence that the frequency of such errors is related to competency in both the mother tongue and the language of instruction for bilingual students.

Mathematics Education and Student Values: The Cultivation of Mathematical Wellbeing

This chapter argues that school mathematics involves more than just the “performance” of students and that “working mathematically” means far more than being good at a specified set of skills, as well as more than being able to show mastery of various conceptual structures. It suggests that experienced teachers understand that the wellbeing of many students can diminish when they are asked to engage with mathematics learning. Underlying such engagement and hence mathematical performance is a command of a specific language that holds the conceptualizing process together. Moreover, of particular importance for this chapter are the values, and their language, that are embedded within mathematics and its pedagogy and how they can be invoked to enable better engagement, improved student wellbeing and consequently better performance.

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.

Globalized curriculum or global approach to curriculum reform in mathematics education

The mathematics education community has shown considerable awareness of the international status of their discipline. While internationalization of the discipline is not a new phenomenon, globalization is a relatively recent term in educational discourse. This paper presents a theoretical model towards the study of globalization and internationalization in mathematics education based on previous publication by the authors. Secondly, it identifies some key issues that have been discussed in the literature and that may require further discussion and research in the field. In particular it discusses the issue of similarity of mathematics education curricula around the world. The concept of a global curriculum is rejected in favor for more internationalized approach to curriculum reform based on collaboration between mathematics educators.

Learning with the Use of the Internet

In this chapter we discuss how the Internet is interacting with mathematics education. After briefly discussing the rise of the Internet and its impact on education, we suggest that it has the potential to disrupt mathematics teaching and learning. Moving far beyond its used as a data resource, we suggest the Internet will provide on-demand access to mathematics knowledge through the collaborative, multimodal and performative affordances of the media that it supports. We note that such affordances will not come to fruition until pedagogical practices have adapted to the rapid pace of this technological change. We conclude by noting that such fundamental change in the teaching of mathematics does have many obstacles, not least that approximately two-thirds of the world’s population does not have sufficient access to the Internet–– and in societies where access is available, access to the Internet often remains limited in classroom settings, particularly for students in low socio-economic areas.

Purposefully Relating Multilingual Registers: Building Theory and Teaching Strategies for Bilingual Learners Based on an Integration of Three Traditions

Starting from revisiting three traditions of reflecting on linguistic transitions between registers and representations, we suggest the integrated approach of purposefully relating registers. The result is likely to enhance language-sensitive teaching strategies in multilingual classrooms that aim at conceptual understanding. Two empirical snapshots from design experiments illustrate this potential for teaching and learning mathematics.

Students’ Use of Their Languages and Registers

In multilingual classrooms, use of different languages is an important, although often neglected or not appreciated, resource (Clarkson, 2007; Moschkovich, 2002). Multilingual classrooms based in multilingual and multicultural societies present potentially rich instances of language and cultural resources that can inform language sensitive teaching strategies for developing conceptual understanding among students (see, Cummins, 2000; Duval, 2006).

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.