Ethnomathematics: Mathematics of People

Abstract

Ethnomathematics rejects the common perception of mathematics as independent of culture. Building on advances in anthropological ideologies away from white cultural and intellectual supremacy, ethnomathematics acknowledges that mathematics is pervasive in everyone’s life and community, in terms of construction, trade, craftsmanship, and so on, practices that are historically, socially, and culturally embedded. Such activities rarely if ever involve the solution of quadratic equations, or computations such as 3/7 + 5/9, disembodied exercises that are so prominent in school mathematics, which thereby often alienates students. The needs of society for a cadre of people skilled in academic mathematics and its applications does not justify the collateral damage done by school mathematics in terms of unnecessarily cutting off educational and financial opportunities, and damage to intellectual and cultural identities. It does not have to be like that.