Eric.ed.gov – Community and Place in Mathematics Instruction in Selected Rural Schools

The teaching of mathematics, which arguably is so abstract as to transcend place and community and even culture (according at least to a Platonic view of mathematics), will seem to some observers particularly ill-suited to instruction in place- or community- or culture-based approaches. Nevertheless, current thinking in mathematics education, with its emphasis on the construction of meaning and the application of problem solving to “real-world” situations, might logically be interpreted as supporting these varied approaches to instruction. Because both rural education and math education scholars collaborated in conducting this study, the project did indeed have its eye as much on the “community purposes of mathematics instruction” as on the “mathematical purposes of community engagement”. The related complexities are legion–and, the authors find, them interesting. This report begins by stating the study questions quite simply (then in a very wide context, and then, before turning to the reports of the seven sites studied, carefully distinguishing “place-based education” from its close, and valued, cousins. The beginning of the report, then, provides theoretical frameworks necessary for readers to understand the intentions and purposes of the study. The empirical work is objectively conducted on such a basis. (Contains 5 figures, 7 tables and 26 footnotes.)