Mathematics Education Colloquium - Inclusive mathematics – an indisciplinary approach

Speaker:   Vinay Kathotia (Open University)

Abstract: In recent years there has been increasing activity around making mathematics more inclusive – in schools and universities and via wider public engagement. In addition to asking what it means to make mathematics more inclusive, one may need to view such activities against a backdrop of efforts to reform mathematics education over past decades and a school mathematics curriculum that, at its core, hasn’t changed much over a few thousand years.

In this talk I will paint some of the background picture and outline a particular approach and research programme, making mathematics, that could provide a means of making mathematical practice more inclusive and expressive.

Making mathematics is evolving work, in collaboration with Ricardo Nemirovsky at Manchester Metropolitan University. It is centred around observing and reflecting on practices of mathematics and craft as craftspeople, mathematicians and others work on shared activity. One of the aims of the project is to distil general principles that could inform educational practice.