Inclusion and diversity in mathematics and science education

The Didactics of Mathematics Research Group (DMRG) of the Department of Mathematics recently hosted a talk as part of the Mathematics Research Seminar Series, by Ms Ivy Angel G Estrella, a PhD student in mathematics education from the Department of Teaching and Learning of Stockholm University in Sweden. She is currently in the country to do some data gathering for her dissertation. Her talk entitled, “Inclusion and Diversity in Mathematics and Science Education” was delivered on 14 February 2024 via hybrid mode. Her onsite and online audience in this event were mainly from the university’s community of Mathematics and Science Education graduate students with the participation of some faculty members of the Department of Mathematics who also graced the event. 

After a welcoming introduction by Prof Catherine Vistro-Yu, EdD (Program Coordinator for Mathematics Education), Ms Estrella broke the ice with a little yet interesting sharing about Stockholm University. She presented remarkable numbers on the population of students, doctoral students, and employees of one of the largest and oldest universities in Scandinavia that was founded in 1878, and zeroed in on worth noting information on research projects and research groups in the Faculty of Humanities where her department belongs. She introduced her research school named Relevancing Mathematics and Science Education or RelMaS that was established to strengthen research and mathematics and science education by engaging teacher educators in practice-oriented research, aiming to analyze and develop didactic models for making relevant mathematics and science education. According to Ms Estrella, RelMaS aims to address the challenges of educating younger generations by consolidating research foundations that are rooted in participatory and practice-oriented forms of research, in addressing the challenges of making mathematics and science education relevant to current global sustainability and climate change issues and to the inclusion of diverse student populations. Upon mentioning the challenge to promote fair access to relevant mathematics education for diverse student populations, Ms Estrella began to unwrap her dissertation’s conceptual focus, which is on language and coloniality.

Commencing with the conceptual triad of modernity, coloniality and decoloniality, Ms Estrella emphasized the vital role of language in the mathematics classroom as central to students’ inclusion and exclusion, as language allows access to mathematical knowledge, participation in the production of knowledge, and overall, in gaining something out of education. Citing the works of Mignolo (2018), Maldonado-Torres (2013) and Grosfuguel (2011), she stressed that language in mathematics classrooms can be used to perpetuate and maintain a sense of cultural and epistemic inferiority, with respect to providing different opportunities for multilingual students to access and produce mathematical knowledge. Hence, the three objectives of her study are: (1) examine language use with regards to the epistemic access of students with different cultures and languages, and how they are placed in the power dynamic as subaltern inside mathematics classroom, (2) make visible the power difference in mathematics classrooms by analyzing who has access to mathematical knowledge, who produces knowledge, who speaks and whose voice is recognized in the classroom, and (3) examine how language can be used to foster a sense of belongingness in multilingual mathematics classrooms.

Her sharing resulted in some points of reflection about the good and dark side of coloniality and its influence on learning, language’s role in the promotion of inclusive mathematics education, the use of the mother tongue in the classroom, access to quality education, and issues on the newly developed MATATAG curriculum. Graduate student participants were given the opportunity to interact with Ms Estrella, ask questions and share their insights, as some of them are also working on research related to some aspects of what she has shared. While the whole event lasted only for a short one hour and a half, it provided a venue for an insightful exchange of ideas, resulted in a truly productive moment of learning, and gave a unique way to celebrate hearts’ day for all who participated.