Page 410 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

Chapter 33
“What Is Ours and What Is Not Ours?”:
Inclusive Imaginings of Contextualised

Mathematics Teacher Education

Bal Chandra Luitel and Peter Charles Taylor

Introduction

How can we address the problem of culturally decontextualised mathematics
education faced by Nepali students who, as citizens of the world’s most recent
democracy, are far from realising the positive contribution of mathematics educa-
tion to the development of a socially just, egalitarian and pluralist society?
The school mathematics curriculum of Nepal carries a potent image of mathe-
matics as a purely symbolic and abstract knowledge system largely disconnected
from the daily lifeworlds of the vast majority of young people dispersed throughout
this agrarian country with 92 distinct language groups and a multitude of world-
1
views (Yadava 2007). Imported from the West but with no explicit acknowledge-
2
ment of its historic roots in Greco, Roman and Arabic traditions, this “world
standard” system of mathematics education masquerades as being transcendental of
culture while serving the academic interests of an elite few who aspire to make it
to tertiary education and into professional life as doctors, engineers, health profes-
sionals, IT specialists, teachers, etc. Although these are positive and beneficial
outcomes for any transitional society, such a restrictive academic focus may be
exacting a very high cost on the cultural integrity of this richly multicultural society.
Research suggests that “world standard” mathematics education in Nepal turns a
blind eye to traditional mathematical practices and associated social values enacted
daily by local communities, thereby serving as a powerful means of one-way

1 Accessible via www.ethnologue.com (verified on 19/06/09).
2 The West is a metaphor deriving from the historic perception of cultural separation of the
Occident and the Orient. This separation has often been used to consider the Occident as superior
to the Orient. Historically, the Orient is regarded as exotic, abnormal and irrational, whereas the
West is depicted as normal, rational and natural (Said 1978).
B.C. Luitel and P.C. Taylor
Curtin University of Technology

D.J. Tippins et al. (eds.), Cultural Studies and Environmentalism, 385
Cultural Studies of Science Education Vol. 3, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3929-3_33,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010