Multicultural Math? Ethnomathematics? Socially Just Math? No Kidding!

I must give credit to Professor Plum for uncovering this blatant and vicious attack on the mathematics field that was once thought to be impervious from multiculturalists and progressive educators. Read Professor Plum and Diane Ravitch's work here.

Text from the Australian Academy of Sciences provides some additional information. For example, a Brazilian, Ubiratan D'Ambrosio is credited as the first to use the term. The term ethnomathematics is used to describe the development of mathematics in various cultures, the differences in mathematics among cultures, and the various contributions different cultures have made to Western Mathematics. Supposedly, the reasoning is that a more individually, culturally relevant mathematical curriculum will lead to increased mathematical achievement. Any hint of rationality in this reasoning breaks down when you read a list of topics from a multiculutural mathematics textbook provided in the Ravitch Article:

A new textbook, "Rethinking Mathematics, Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers," shows how problem-solving, ethnomathematics, and political action can be merged. Among its topics are: "Sweatshop Accounting," with units on povery, globalization, and the unequal distribution of wealth. Another topic drawn directly from ethnomathematics, is Chicano's Have Math in Their Blood." Others include "The Transnational Capital Auction," "Multicultural Math," and "Home Buying While Brown or Black."

Need further evidence that the field of mathematics has now become a tool for political and social activists. For example, D'Ambrosio writes in the linked text:

Mathematics is absolutely integrated with Western Civilization, which conquered and dominated the entire world. The only possibility of building up a planetary civilization restoring the dignity of the losers and, together, winners and losers moving into the new. [Ethnomathematics, then, is] a step towards peace.

Is it any wonder why the United States is ranked behind many other industialized nations in mathematics? If progressive educators and multiculturalist continue to get their way, the unintended effect will result in many poor and impoverished American students not receiving the type of education needed to break the cycle of poverty. In addition, the United States will continue to rank near the bottom when compared with other industrialized nations in academic achievement.