Re: Ethnomathematics
-- On 25 Feb 2003 at 23:58, Sarad AV wrote: > "Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematics which takes > into consideration the culture in which mathematics arises. > Mathematics is often associated with the study of > "universals". When we speak of "universals", however, it is > important to recognize that often something we think of as > universal is merely universal to those who share our cultural > and historical perspectives. Doubtless among Margaret Mead's happy fun loving socialist free love practicing Samoans, three plus three equalled four. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG v+NaePzhJvBgWFvKEiBLJz6Xkkcnk4Si7pg+h+Gd 4dztWvm+OzZ43IaSm6G69uaLLisWXr4ltulX/X5tE
Re: Ethnomathematics
John Bethencourt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 10:02:05PM +1300, Peter Gutmann wrote: >>Well, I made a start a few years ago with "Network Security: A Feminist >>Perspective" (done when "people ask me to do security talks for them without >>bothering to specify which aspect of security they want me to talk about") >>about halfway down my home page. The direct link to the slides is >>http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/fhealth.pdf. > >Hilarious! I loved it, but it was so short. You should do an extended, in >depth treatment of this subject in the spirit of Sokal. I could never maintain that for more than a page or two (although I do have an upcoming X.509 RFC with a paragraph of two of Marxist philosophy taking the place of the usual rambling philosophising over why the RFC is needed). If someone else wants to take over from/extend the above work, they're welcome to. Peter.
Re: Ethnomathematics
On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 10:02:05PM +1300, Peter Gutmann wrote: > > Well, I made a start a few years ago with "Network Security: A Feminist > Perspective" (done when "people ask me to do security talks for them without > bothering to specify which aspect of security they want me to talk about") > about halfway down my home page. The direct link to the slides is > http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/fhealth.pdf. > > Peter. Hilarious! I loved it, but it was so short. You should do an extended, in depth treatment of this subject in the spirit of Sokal. John Bethencourt
Re: Ethnomathematics
Bill Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >Actually doing a female-oriented physics or teaching curriculum is fine, if >somebody can do a good job of it. Well, I made a start a few years ago with "Network Security: A Feminist Perspective" (done when "people ask me to do security talks for them without bothering to specify which aspect of security they want me to talk about") about halfway down my home page. The direct link to the slides is http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/fhealth.pdf. Peter.
RE: Ethnomathematics
> -- > From: Bill Stewart[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 2:52 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Ethnomathematics > > At 05:41 PM 02/24/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote: > >Seriously, this flap is old news. I remember about a dozen years ago > >when some feminista professor was teaching "female-oriented physics." > >Actually, she was _advocating_ the teaching of female-oriented physics. > > Was she an actual physics professor, talking about her own field, > or some sort of literature/philosophy/sociology/politics professor? > The latter type are definitely old news, but as long as they spend their > time > trying to convince female physics and mathematics professors to > think about new ways to structure or teach their curriculum, that's fine. > > It's when they start dissing physics and math as "hostile to women" > and thereby discouraging young women from going into the field > that they really cause problems (as opposed to old boring sexist white > male > professors > discouraging women from going into the field, which was the old problem.) > > Actually doing a female-oriented physics or teaching curriculum is fine, > if somebody can do a good job of it. After all, most of these fields > consist of real mathematics, exposure to real materials and their > behaviour, > sets of metaphors for understanding how the math and behaviour are > related, > and various levels of abstraction and concrete examples to interest > students. > > The math is the math, and the materials either will or won't cooperate, > but if feminist approaches can provide a set of metaphors or abstractions > that help students (or at least female-culture-oriented students) > understand how the math relates to the real world, then great! > And if they can find a set of examples or problems that are less > male-oriented than > guns, rocketships, pushing pool cues into objects of various hardness and > softness, or football > and if this helps female students be more interested in the problems, > or gives them examples that are more familiar to them, then great! > There's certainly no shortage of boring textbooks out there, > and if women who understand math and physics and communications can > overcome > Sturgeon's Law and the textbook publishers' mafia or teacher selection > committees, > then more power to them, and otherwise, well, the other 90% will be more > gender-balanced. > I don't know if this is what Tim was refering to, but it's of interest: http://www.physics.iastate.edu/per/docs/ref5.pdf Shows how changing the examples used in physics exams changes the responses of male and female students. Peter
Re: Ethnomathematics
At 05:41 PM 02/24/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote: Seriously, this flap is old news. I remember about a dozen years ago when some feminista professor was teaching "female-oriented physics." Actually, she was _advocating_ the teaching of female-oriented physics. Was she an actual physics professor, talking about her own field, or some sort of literature/philosophy/sociology/politics professor? The latter type are definitely old news, but as long as they spend their time trying to convince female physics and mathematics professors to think about new ways to structure or teach their curriculum, that's fine. It's when they start dissing physics and math as "hostile to women" and thereby discouraging young women from going into the field that they really cause problems (as opposed to old boring sexist white male professors discouraging women from going into the field, which was the old problem.) Actually doing a female-oriented physics or teaching curriculum is fine, if somebody can do a good job of it. After all, most of these fields consist of real mathematics, exposure to real materials and their behaviour, sets of metaphors for understanding how the math and behaviour are related, and various levels of abstraction and concrete examples to interest students. The math is the math, and the materials either will or won't cooperate, but if feminist approaches can provide a set of metaphors or abstractions that help students (or at least female-culture-oriented students) understand how the math relates to the real world, then great! And if they can find a set of examples or problems that are less male-oriented than guns, rocketships, pushing pool cues into objects of various hardness and softness, or football and if this helps female students be more interested in the problems, or gives them examples that are more familiar to them, then great! There's certainly no shortage of boring textbooks out there, and if women who understand math and physics and communications can overcome Sturgeon's Law and the textbook publishers' mafia or teacher selection committees, then more power to them, and otherwise, well, the other 90% will be more gender-balanced.
Re: Ethnomathematics
Anonymous wrote: Ethnomathematics Good lord, this sounds like it was practically designed to sabotage the prospects for minorities to excel in mathematics, by encouraging them to waste their efforts on nonsense and useless trivia.
Ethnomathematics ... or niggers in space ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23CRASH.html?ex=1047027608&ei=1&en=b5465666bfebf361
Ethnomathematics
February 23, 2003 By DIRK OLIN
Mathematics is one academic subject that would seem to reside in a world
of universality, protected from competing opinions by the objectivity of
its laws. But the real universal law is that everything is relative,
even in math. The release last month of a new math curriculum for New
York City schools by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has elicited something
just short of vituperation. Back-to-basics advocates denounce as ''fuzzy
math'' its inclusion of so-called constructivist teaching techniques.
Critics complain that those approaches encourage self-discovery and
collaborative problem-solving at the expense of proved practices like
memorization, repetition and mastery of algorithm.
It's all the latest in a century of American math wars. The previous
generation can remember the struggle over ''new math'' during the 1950's
and 60's. (''Hooray for new math,/New-hoo-hoo math!'' Tom Lehrer sang.
''It won't do you a bit of good to review math./It's so simple,/So very
simple./That only a child can do it!'') Battles flared even earlier in
the century over ''progressive'' agendas for math education of the type
pushed by John Dewey.
How tame those struggles seem, however, when compared to the rising
vanguard of self-described ethnomathematicians. For some, the new
discipline just means studying the anthropology of various measurement
methods; they merely want to supplement the accepted canon -- from
Pythagoras to Euclid to Newton -- with mind-expanding explorations of
mathematical ideas from other cultures. For others, however,
ethnomathematics is an effort to supplant the tyranny of Western
mathematical standards.
The Postulates
Ethnomathematics has a few parents, but most observers trace its formal
birth to a speech given by the Brazilian mathematician Ubiratan
D'Ambrosio in the mid-1980's. Now an emeritus professor of math at the
State University of Campinas outside S-o Paulo, he explained his
thinking a couple of years ago to The Chronicle of Higher Education:
''Mathematics is absolutely integrated with Western civilization, which
conquered and dominated the entire world. The only possibility of
building up a planetary civilization depends on restoring the dignity of
the losers.'' Robert N. Proctor, who teaches the history of science at
Pennsylvania State University, says he wants to counter the notion
''that the West is the be all and end all'' when it comes to
mathematical studies. ''After all,'' he adds, ''all math is ethnomath --
not just African kinship numerics or Peruvian bead counting, but also
the C.I.A.'s number-crunching cryptology and Reaganomics.''
To redress their pedagogical grievances, these ethnomathematicians want
math curriculums that place greater emphasis on the systems of previous
civilizations and certain traditional cultures. Studies of state
civilizations might focus on Chinese or Arabic math concepts. One study,
for example, has shown how the Chinese Chu Shih-chieh triangle
anticipated by more than three centuries the highly similar arrangement
of numerals by Pascal that holds sway in many Western teachings of
probability theory.
In her seminal books ''Ethnomathematics'' and ''Mathematics Elsewhere,''
Marcia Ascher, emerita professor of mathematics at Ithaca College,
chronicles the astonishingly complex data-storage systems embedded in
quipu, bundles of cotton cord knotted by Incans according to a
sophisticated base-10 numeration system. At a more quotidian level, Ron
Eglash of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has written and taught
extensively about the nuances of fractals, or repeating patterns, that
can be found in certain African craft work. (Eglash stresses a
distinction between simple-minded multicultural math -- ''which merely
replaces Dick and Jane counting marbles with Tatuk and Esteban counting
coconuts'' -- and what he calls the ''deep design themes'' that
represent mature, developed mathematical systems too often ignored in
the study of many societies.)
What Its Critics Fear
Some of this is just fine, says David Klein, a professor of mathematics
with California State University at Northridge. Klein (a self-described
liberal who insists on separating his academic critique from any
connection to a conservative political agenda) says the danger lies in
allowing such precepts to crowd out fundaments on which modernity is
based. He argues that the statistically lower achievements of some
female and minority math students have resulted in an overreaction that
doesn't serve their interests. ''The practical
Ethnomathematics-Key text (fwd)
http://www.science.org.au/nova/073/073key.htm -- We don't see things as they are, [EMAIL PROTECTED] we see them as we are. www.ssz.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anais Nin www.open-forge.org
