Sharing conceptual gifts by bringing into dialogue sociopolitical mathematics education, decolonial thought, and critical global citizenship education.

Swanson, Dalene; le Roux, Kate

Abstract

Concerns about what happens at the confluence of discourses with respect to mathematics and mathematics education, ‘globalisation’, and ‘citizenship’ have long been raised by mathematics education scholars working within the sociopolitical. Recent world events that highlight the paradoxical interconnectedness and divisiveness characterising the contemporary world, and simultaneously the reach of mathematics in action within science and technology in society, serve to bring this confluence into critical focus. Scholarship shows that, in its dominant mode, these discourses act through power relations to (re)produce the interests of a neoliberal, globalising capitalism, even as capitalism is in its late mode. Such scholarship also reveals the imperatives and (im)possibilities of challenging dominant discourses of exclusion, often advanced in the name of inclusion, of mathematical knowledges (such as, ‘global’ vs. ‘local’ knowledges), and of mathematical knowers (notably, ‘citizens’ vs. ‘non-citizens’). Our intention here is to pursue the possibilities and limitations afforded by the stated confluence of discourses. Given the historical constitution of mathematics as a hubristic discipline that projects a purportedly neutral, universal, recontextualising and certain ‘gaze’ on the world, and of mathematics education as serving to produce the mathematical ‘citizen’ with such a gaze, our intention is to reimagine conceptual boundary-crossing praxes. The possibility we offer takes the form of a relational, opening, glocalising praxis, exercised with a disposition of reflexivity and reciprocity, the latter involving giving with responsibility and receiving humbly. We offer guiding questions to exemplify the realisable potential of this praxis to reimagine the mathematical ‘citizen’ anew. In this latter sense, we are trying to understand what happens when the student, teacher, or researcher assumes the role of ‘citizen’. For our proposed praxis of reimagining, we think from decolonial thought and critical global citizenship education, in dialogue with sociopolitical mathematics education.

Citation

Swanson, D., & le Roux, K. (2025). Sharing conceptual gifts by bringing into dialogue sociopolitical mathematics education, decolonial thought, and critical global citizenship education. In A. Chronaki, & A. Yolcu (Eds.), Troubling Notions of Global Citizenship and Diversity in Mathematics Education. Routledge

• Online Publication Date: Mar 6, 2025
• Publication Date: Mar 6, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jan 16, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: Troubling Notions of Global Citizenship and Diversity in Mathematics Education
• Chapter Number: 5
• ISBN: 9780367672942
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/44231155
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/Troubling-Notions-of-Global-Citizenship-and-Diversity-in-Mathematics-Education/Chronaki-Yolcu/p/book/9780367672942