Understanding Values, Practices, and their Alignment Regarding Incorporating Histories into Mathematics Classrooms

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 7:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Traversing Global Perspectives of the Mathematics Classroom

Abstract

This study explores values, practices, and their alignment regarding the history of mathematics – both global and Indian – in teaching contexts for mathematics scholars (i.e., professors, PhD students, postdocs) in Indian universities. The study seeks to “unforget the past” such as non-Western history and creates future research agendas on this past to highlight contextual nature of mathematics. Building on Jankvist’s (2009) why-how framework, we developed a questionnaire to investigate respondents’ values (why) and practices (how) for both global and Indian history. Anticipated findings include high values toward incorporating, especially Indian history. However, such valuation might not align with actual practice in classrooms. The study responds to the AERA 2026’s theme through questions of “whose histories and identities matter” in mathematics.

Authors

• Praveen Chhikara

• Rochelle Gutierrez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign