Infusing Diversity into Mathematics

Cultural diversity refers to human activity and symbolic structure that gives significance of the activity. Culture also refers to an individual, group or society. Technology, art, science, characteristic behaviors and habits can even be referred to as culture. It classifies, symbolizes and defines features of humans. Also other references can be the way people live such as beliefs, language, history and even the way they dress. Academic achievements for students require infusing disciplinary knowledge and the knowledge of student diversity into the curriculum. In mathematics, it sometimes can be viewed as culture free, which can mean that it is not necessarily a social and culture discipline. What should be understood by the teachers is that how the knowledge that is understood in mathematics can be related to norms and values of diverse languages and cultures. One way to infuse diversity in mathematics is by acknowledging what they do know instead of what they don’t know. So for an example, the students who have knowledge of the subway system can use the system as a better understanding of operations with integers. There is a needed focus on student’s strengths where curriculum and instruction is based on what the students know.
In order to deal and maintain integration diverse cultures in the classroom there is needed conceptual framework. There are three well known approaches for teaching mathematics while infusing diverse cultures. The first approach is called the situated perspective. “Learning becomes a process of changing participation in changing communities of practice in which an individual’s resulting knowledge becomes a function of the environment in which s/he operates.” In mathematics, the student learns the community and context that impacts how the student can use and understand mathematics. Linking