Abstract
An impasse in mathematics education is related to its often lack of acknowledgment of local mathematical practices in its research theoretical basis. Pedagogical action of ethnomodelling can aid in recording cultural-historical forms of mathematical procedures and practices developed by members of distinct cultural groups. Ethnomodelling adds cultural perspectives to the mathematical modelling process without attempting to replace academic mathematics during the development of this process. Hence, insubordination triggered by ethnomodelling is creative and often evokes a sense of disturbance that causes conscious review of rules and regulations endemic to many curricula contexts. This process enables educators and investigators to use positive deviance to develop pedagogical actions that deal with content often disconnected from the reality of the students.
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Notes
- 1.
The concepts of creative insubordination (Crowson and Morris 1982), responsible subversion (Hutchison 1990), or positive deviance (Zetlin et al. 1990) are equivalent as they relate to the adaptability of rules and regulations in order to achieve the welfare of the members of distinct cultural groups. However, there are subtle conceptual differences that must be discussed during the development of investigations.
- 2.
Primitivism refers to cultures believed to lack cultural, social, technological, or economic sophistication or development. Historically, primitivism has been used to justify conquering the members of other cultural groups. In cultural terms, primitivism means a deficiency in those qualities that have been used historically in the Western world as indicators of so-called civilized cultures (Rhodes 1995).
- 3.
The emic and etic approaches were developed by Pike (1967) from a distinction in linguistics between phonemic and phonetic. In their original meanings, phonemics refers to examination of sounds for their meaning-bearing roles in a particular language, while phonetics denotes study on universal sounds covering all languages.
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Rosa, M., Orey, D.C. (2021). Positive Deviance in the Pedagogical Action of Ethnomodelling. In: Leung, F.K.S., Stillman, G.A., Kaiser, G., Wong, K.L. (eds) Mathematical Modelling Education in East and West. International Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66996-6_6
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