Teaching and Learning Mathematics in Multilingual Classrooms

Contemporary concerns in mathematics educationrecognize that in the increasingly technological and globalized world, withconcomitant change in population demographics (e.g. immigration, urbanization)and a change in the status of languages (e.g. English as a dominant language ofscience and technology) multilingualism in classrooms is a norm rather than anexception. Shifts in perspective also view language not simply as an instrumentfor cognition with all learners equipped with this instrument in service oflearning, although clearly in the classroom that remains of importance. Rather,it is now also being acknowledged that language use is inherently political, sothat the language that gets official recognition in the classroom is invariablythe language of the powerful elite, or the dominant societal language, or inthe case of post-colonial contexts the language of the colonisers. From thissocio-political role of language in learning quite different issues arise forteaching, learning and curriculum for linguistically marginalized learners thanthat of cognition (e.g. immigrants, second language learners, other).

Policies on language in education are beingconsidered and re-considered with specific reference to mathematics teachingand learning. Given the policy environment, globally the proposed publicationis timely.

This edited collection draws on recent, emerginginsights and understandings about the approaches to improving policy andpractice in mathematics education and mathematics teacher education inmultilingual settings. It presents, and discusses critically, examples ofworkfrom a range of contexts and uses these examples to draw out key issues forresearch in education in language diverse settings including teaching,learning, curriculum and fit these with appropriate policy and equityapproaches.

With contributions from all over the world,especially novice researchers in low income countries, this book is a valuableresource for courses in Mathematics Education and related social sciences bothat the graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as for students ofinternational development.