Dialogue, responsibility and mathematics education

Teaching and learning mathematics for the planet and each other (PLENARY 1 MES12 BRAZIL)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34024/prometeica.2024.31.19568

Keywords:

Mathematics education, dialogue, ecosystem, responsibility

Abstract

The world is in trouble and mathematics is involved. We are mathematics educators—teachers, researchers, activists. What is our response? What is our responsibility? In the first part of this text, I engage with selected contributions to MES to synthesise features of the mathematics education we might need: responsibility, critique, imagination, uncertainty, conducted in a spirit of ethical relationality, humility, freedom of learning, and a recognition of the fundamental worth of every human being, non-human creature, language, culture and ecosystem, and our dependence on them for our own existence and survival. In the second part, I propose dialogism as one epistemological stance for mathematics education from which these features follow. I develop some of the epistemological foundations of dialogism, drawing particularly on Bakhtin’s work on language and his philosophy of the act. These ideas include meaning, response, answerability, interdependence and non-finality. I illustrate these ideas in relation to two situations: language and cultural diversity in mathematics classrooms; and the role of mathematics in the context of biodiversity. I conclude by emphasising that thinking dialogically about mathematics in a time of trouble points to the importance of our responsibility to each other at each moment of our existence.

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Author Biography

  • Richard Barwell, University of Ottawa

    Richard Barwell is a full professor in the Faculty of Education and served as dean from 2017 until 2024. He began his career at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, where he earned a PhD in education, and later joined the Faculty in 2006. His research focuses on mathematics education, with a particular interest in the role of language in teaching and learning mathematics, an interest which first arose prior to his university career, when he taught mathematics in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. Professor Barwell is also interested in how mathematics education can address climate change and environmental sustainability.

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Published

2024-11-29

Issue

Vol. 31 (2024): Prometeica - v 31 (11/2024 - 02/2025)

Section

Articles - Dossier 1

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How to Cite

Barwell, R. (2024). Dialogue, responsibility and mathematics education: Teaching and learning mathematics for the planet and each other (PLENARY 1 MES12 BRAZIL). Prometeica - Journal of Philosophy and Science, 31, 392-407. https://doi.org/10.34024/prometeica.2024.31.19568
Received 2024-10-01
Accepted 2024-11-12
Published 2024-11-29