Ethnomathematics
From Free net encyclopedia
Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematics that considers the culture in which mathematics arises. Ethnomathematicians take the view that any mathematics is an artifact of a particular culture. The goal of this study is to contribute both to the understanding of culture and the understanding of mathematics.
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Subject matter
Subjects which are studied in ethnomathematics include but are not limited to numeral systems, architecture, weaving, and games of skill and chance.
Criticism
Criticism of ethnomathematics comes in two forms.
First, critics of ethnomathematics claim that most books on the subject emphasize the differences between cultures rather than the similarities. These critics would like to see emphasis on the fact that, for example, negative numbers have been discovered on three independent occasions, in China, in India, and in Germany, and in all three cultures, mathematicians discovered the same rule for multiplying negative numbers. Pascal's triangle was discovered in China, India and Persia long before it was discovered in Europe by Pascal, and all found exactly the same properties as did Pascal. These critics would like to see ethnomathematics emphasize the unifying aspects of mathematics.
Second, critics claim that courses that emphasize ethnomathematics spend too little time on teaching useful mathematics, and teach multi-culturalism and pseudoscience instead. An example of this criticism is an article by Marianne M. Jennings in the Christian Science Monitor, April 2, 1996, titled "'Rain Forest' Algebra Course Teaches Everything But Algebra". Another example is the article "The Third Mathematics Education Revolution" by Richard Askey, published in Contemporary Issues in Mathematics Education (Press Syndicate, Cambridge, UK, 1999), in which he accuses Focus on Algebra, the same Addison-Wesley textbook criticized by the Christian Science Monitor, of teaching pseudoscience, claiming for South Sea Islanders mystic knowledge of astronomy more advanced than scientific knowledge.
See also
Further reading
- Ascher, Marcia (1991). Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole. ISBN 0-412989417
- Closs, M. P. (ed.) (1986). Native American Mathematics. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- Eglash, Ron (1999). African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design. New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2613-2, paperback ISBN 0-8135-2614-0
- Joseph, George Gheverghese (2000). The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics. 2nd. ed. London: Penguin Books.
- Powell, Arthur B., and Marilyn Frankenstein (eds.) (1997). Ethnomathematics: Challenging Eurocentrism in Mathematics Education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-3351-X
- Zaslavsky, Claudia (1973). Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture. Third revised ed., 1999. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 1-556523505
