Mathematics in Different Cultures

Summary

This group felt that although its brief might have appeared limited at first sight, it has important points to make to everyone concerned with popularization. The term ‘culture’ can, and should, be interpreted broadly in order for popularization to stand any chance of success.

The key aim of popularization is to overcome alienation. We identified power imbalance in society as one of the fundamental causes of alienation, with ‘Western’ Mathematics being seen to be a strong part of the ‘educational’ system helping to alienate various groups in different societies.

In some countries there are indigenous cultural groups as minorities (eg New Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, Finland) and in the majority (eg South Africa) though in all those countries the dominant cultural group assumes Western Maths to be the only mathematics worth knowing.

In Africa and South America there are ex-colonial societies trying to identify their own view of mathematics, while in Europe, North America, and Australasia there are new immigrants feeling alienated from the ‘resident’ culture.

Mathematics in Different Cultures 39 In all these situations it is as much the process of cultural alienation which needs to be overcome as the dominant mathematical view itself.