Arindam Bose (Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai): Can cultural insights and funds of knowledge create opportunities for mathematics learning? Insights from an out-of-school work-contexts study in Mumbai

Abstract:

Funds of knowledge (community based knowledge resource and cultural insights) perspective illuminates how connectedness of social networks gives rise to diverse and rich knowledge and experience that can be drawn for school learning. This talk will take cues from a large study set in an urban, developing world context in India, where middle graders from a low-income and economically active community often directly participate in work, or are closely aware of work contexts and practices. Experiences and knowledge of tools, artefacts and various practices that involve at times higher order mathematical and scientific knowledge drawn from diverse contexts are intimately familiar and even embodied in students, also remain present in the classroom. This talk will explore if such diversity of experience within a school community can present a meaningful opportunity for learning that has been largely ignored in formal school education and how to attain this. For example, how handling of diverse goods or limited access to them, optimising resources and decision making processes create different possibilities of dealing with mathematical knowledge. Another example is the different modes of measurement knowledge embedded in various work-contexts which the middle graders are familiar with and how students’ identities are shaped through participation in work contexts.

This talk will present features of participants’ mathematical knowledge in relation to out-of-school contexts and trace implications for classroom mathematics pedagogy.

Coffee and biscuits at 14:45 in room 1404

Best regards,

Rita Borromeo Ferri