Cultural distance and identities-in- construction within the multicultural mathematics classroom

In this paper we present and exemplify our interpretation of some theoretical constructs that have proved useful to our understanding of the complexity of multicultural mathematics classrooms. Constructs such as culture, cultural distance, cultural conflict and identities-in-construction have oriented our study of the complexity of highly multicultural mathematics classrooms in Barcelona. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how cultural distance arising from the different meanings that students, being local or immigrant, inevitably bring to the mathematics classroom may turn into cultural conflicts when cultural interaction is not facilitated through classroom discourse. The lack of cultural interaction and communication may give rise to strong negative feelings and refusal to participate on the side of the students. Students’ nonparticipation can be understood as an active response to cultural distance and negative opinions in order to safeguard the identities they (wish to) construct within a context that they perceive as hostile. 1. About the project The increasing number of migrant people, refugees, and displaced persons, and therefore, of youngsters living in places with languages and cultures different from that of their families, is a result of the world globalisation process. The Spanish educational system must face the needs of a society where the plurality of cultures and languages is, and will be, a reality. The social fabric that we will have in the near future depends, to a great extent, on the way schools serve, meaning giving service and being useful to, those that at present are considered as not belonging to mainstream social groups and culture. In Catalonia, an autonomous region within Spain where our research is taking place, immigrant children attend public schools that are abandoned by children belonging to local families who can afford to send them to a private school. Therefore, in some schools, the percentage of immigrant students is rising very fast. Such students face a school system that has a limited understanding of the linguistic and socio-cultural aspects linked to teaching mathematics in multicultural situations. Moreover, there is a widespread social perception that the ‘global level of attainment’ in public schools is dropping dramatically because of the inclusion of immigrant students. While some local educational administrations and schools are introducing inclusive policies, and some teachers are finding ways that seem to be successful, the rules and laws that develop the Ley Orgánica de la Calidad de la Educación, LOCE 10/2002 (Spanish Educational Act) tend to promote segregation. In general, teachers are not prepared for teaching in multicultural classrooms; the curriculum is intended for the ‘native’ groups and language, understood as everyday language, is the only ‘problem to be solved’. The beginning of our project was the result of a request from the Catalan Ministry of Education. The aims of the project were a result of an initial negotiation and they included, among others: a) to know more about the knowledge that immigrant students bring with them to school and how this knowledge can be linked with the curriculum and its development in class; b) to uncover the values and expectations immigrant students associate with school mathematics and out-ofschool mathematics and how these values and expectations could help or interfere with the teaching and learning of mathematics, and; c) to develop both proposals and practical examples of how to adapt the school curriculum and classroom organisation to the multicultural classroom. Working collaboratively with teachers, we developed examples of local curriculum adaptations, teaching materials and classroom activities, ways of structuring time and space, possible classroom organisations and student groupings that proved to be inclusive (see Gorgorió; Planas; Vilella 2000; Planas; Gorgorió; Vilella 1999). The teachers volunteered to join the project, knowing the aims of the study, and being sensitive to inclusion and equity issues. They had agreed to design with us a series of problems to be posed in their classrooms, developed the problem-solving lessons with their students, and had helped us in the process of gaining the parents’ permission to observe and video-tape the sessions. There had been an agreement on working collaboratively on problem-solving tasks which, on the one hand would facilitate students’ participation and, on the other, would allow us, teachers and researchers, to come to know more about students’ values, beliefs and expectations. An extensive micro-ethnographic case study was also developed for three months in three classrooms. The choice of an ethnographic methodology was mainly based on the assumption that, in order to understand the meanings attached to classroom episodes by different individuals, one must attempt to interpret the context from their perspectives. The sessions on problem solving were video-taped and all video-tapes were fully transcribed. The notes taken by the second author, the teachers’ field notes and the students’ notebooks provided complementary data (for more details, see Planas 2001). As the project progressed, we soon realised that individuals’ participation in the mathematics classroom needed to be considered from a broader perspective. The learning of mathematics of minority students is affected by what takes place within the classroom and in its immediate contexts (Zevenbergen 2000, 2003; Nasir; Cobb 2002). The challenges that multiculturalism poses in the mathematics classroom are clearly linked to equity issues. One of these challenges is to increase all students’ participation, as a first condition for their success as students. Immigrant students’ success within the school system is most significant when establishing their future life possibilities, since it is linked to life opportunities and barriers. Ladson-Billings (1997) suggests the need of first