Ethnomatematics three pedagogical proposals for basic education

Abstract

The Ethnomathematics diffusion in the scope of fundamental school is still scarce, despite its proposals for the pedagogical action. In view of that, I present three researches directed to the teaching of fundamental education under the light of the dambrosian conceptions of Ethnomathematics. The first objectivates mathematical knowledge familiar to potters living in Currais Novos Village, Rio Grande do Norte, to contribute to the elaboration of a pedagogical proposal dialoguing with formal mathematical knowledge taught in schools established there. The second is the report of an educational experience with 6th grade fundamental school pupils living in a community of red pottery industrial workers established in Russas, Ceará. The third suggests a curricular analysis in mathematical education associating formal Mathematics with mathematical knowledge of a horticulturists’ village located in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. One of the results of the third research presented the pupils that Mathematics exists not only in the class-room, in the books, but everywhere, and the it varies because cultures vary, too, as told a pupil who knew both mathematics: the one of schools’, and that other of the horticulturists’, but he preferred the latter because it was more familiar to him. The second research revealed that, when pupils are placed as the responsible for the process of data recollecting and analysis emerging from their own socio-cultural context, it adds to creating a discussion space in class-room, where the students turn to be critical subjects of their own reality.