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Cultural distance and identities-in-construction within the multicultural mathematics classroom
(Núria Gorgorió, Núria Planas)

In this paper we present and exemplify our interpretation of some theoretical constructs that have proved useful to our understanding of the complexity of multicultural mathematics classrooms. Constructs such as culture, cultural distance, cultural conflict and identities-in-construction have oriented our study of the complexity of highly multicultural mathematics classrooms in Barcelona. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how cultural distance arising from the different meanings that students, being local or immigrant, inevitably bring to the mathematics classroom may turn into cultural conflicts when cultural interaction is not facilitated through classroom discourse. The lack of cultural interaction and communication may give rise to strong negative feelings and refusal to participate on the side of the students. Students’ non-participation can be understood as an active response to cultural distance and negative opinions in order to safeguard the identities they (wish to) construct within a context that they perceive as hostile.
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Teachers’ funds of knowledge and the teaching and learning of mathematics in multi-ethnic primary schools: Two teachers’ views of linking home and school
(Jane Andrews, Wan Ching Yee, Pamela Greenhough, Martin Hughes, Jan Winter

In this paper we explore two teachers’ views on the role(s) of parents, the local community and children’s home lives in the learning of mathematics in primary school. We use Moll and Greenberg’s concept of ‘funds of knowledge’ and apply it to the case studies of two teachers working in the UK context. Issues of teachers’ professional experience, ethnicity, class and gender emerge as significant in examining similarities and differences in the teachers’ beliefs, understandings and practices in the area of linking home and school. We end with a discussion of some implications for teacher education and professional development.
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Immigrant parents’ perspectives on their children’s mathematics education
(Marta Civil, Núria Planas, Beatriz Quintos)

This paper draws on two research studies with similar theoretical backgrounds, in two different settings, Barcelona, Spain) and Tucson, USA. From a sociocultural perspective, the analysis of mathematics education in multilingual and multiethnic classrooms requires us to consider contexts, such as the family context, that have an influence on these classrooms and its participants. We focus on immigrant parents’ perspectives on their children’s mathematics education and we primarily discuss two topics: (1) their experiences with the teaching of mathematics, and (2) the role of language (native language and second language). The two topics are explored with reference to the immigrant students’ or their parents’ former educational systems (the "before") and their current educational systems (the "now"). Parents and schools understand educational systems, classroom cultures and students’ attainment differently, as influenced by their sociocultural histories and contexts.
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Parents’ views on mathematics and the learning of mathematics - an intercultural comparative study
(Britta Hawighorst)

This paper describes an empirical study of how parents variously view mathematics and the learning of mathematics. Based on the assumption that specific familial circumstances have a decisive effect on the procedures pupils adopt when dealing with mathematical content, the focus is on the perceptions and attitudes of parents from differing social and cultural backgrounds. The study covers parents who have immigrated to Germany as well as indigenous German parents. This paper reports on an ongoing study, includes a description of the theoretical framework (based, on the one hand, on findings from educational research of immigration and, on the other, on research done on mathematical didactics) as well as a description of the methodological approach employed. It concludes with a presentation of a number of aspects selected from the evaluation of the interviews conducted with repatriate parents from countries of the former Soviet Union.
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Cultural differences, oral mathematics and calculators in a teacher training course of the Brazilian Landless Movement
 (Gelsa Knijnik, Fernanda Wanderer, Claudio José de Oliveira)

This paper discusses aspects of a two-year study of a teacher-training course for adult mathematics education organized by a Brazilian landless peoples' social movement. It takes ethnomathematics as a theoretical framework in which cultural differences are central. The paper analyses some of the oral mathematics practices that mark the landless peoples' culture studied. In particular, it discusses a pedagogical process involving the articulation of oral mathematics practices with the use of the calculator, focusing on how pre-service teachers give meaning to their experience and on how cultural differences operated in this setting.
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Cultural and linguistic problems in the use of authentic textbooks when teaching mathematics in a foreign language
(Jarmila Novotná, Hana Moraová)

This paper is a part of a longitudinal study focusing on qualitative aspects of learning in a foreign language in the development of cognitive processes in mathematics. The aim of the paper is to present a more complex analysis of textbook-based obstacles to communication. These obstacles originate in the process of vocabulary and grammar acquisition within a particular multicultural and sociocultural context. The study was carried out using mathematics textbooks from English-speaking countries which are used when teaching mathematics in English to Czech students.
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