Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper describes some mathematical practices in and across school contexts in South Africa. Through this description, I challenge a decontextualised notion of schooling and so too a decontextualised notion of mathematical practices in school. Through examples of mathematical practices within and across school contexts in South Africa, I illustrate what is well known in the field of sociology of education – that school mathematics and its associated practices are social at their core. They are a function of how knowledge in society is selected, transmitted and evaluated through schooling. These are socio-political processes and so vary considerably within and across social contexts, and inevitable function of the distribution of power and social control in society (Bernstein, 1996).

The author gives a personal view on the importance of a mathematics journal as an indispensable intermediary between mathematics teachers and the research community.

The study of mathematical practice is not the private property of philosophers. Many other disciplines, especially including mathematicians, are engaged in it. As a case study, an elementary derivation of Heon’s area formula is presented, and then analyzed methodologically and ontologically.