Talk:Anti-racist mathematics

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This article was nominated for deletion on 25 August, 2005. The result of the vote was keep. An archived record of this vote can be found here.

Contents 1 Summary 2 edit, August 27, 2005 3 Some Article Criticisms 4 Explanation 5 Info 6 Add Warning? 7 Change Title? 8 Well 9 Recent reversions 10 racism 11 examples 12 Hoax 13 Opposites 14 Biased against whom? 15 Why do these "racist" mathematics not affect Asians? 16 A new attempt to modify this page's title 17 No examples

[edit] Summary

This article has one great big flaw. It does not give one single example of what it is talking about. Not one of the links (that I have tried) provides any examples. It does not define "anti racist mathematics".

Frankly, it is the kind of fancy footwork wording I use when I use my university education to have fun running verbal circles around my high school granddaughter.

Suggest it be renominated for deletion and this time, someone watch for multiple entries on the voting.67.174.53.196 05:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edit, August 27, 2005

A NPOV article should not begin with criticism. Therefore, I've taken the pro-anti-racist remarks out of the criticism section and moved them into a new section 1.

We also need some examples of racist mathematics, but I can't think of any, except for the joke about word problems and how they have evolved over the years.

I, for one, found this article very interesting, in its description of a real (if misguided) movement in math ed. When I get out to school, where my references are, I'm going to add some examples from a "multi-cultural" algebra text, which teaches that, for example, people in the South Sea Islands were able to discover facts about the solar system unknown to scientists, but which teaches little or no algebra.

I note that the quote from an anti-racist scholar also uses anti-racist capitalization. (Is Eats, Shoots and Leaves racist?)

[edit] Some Article Criticisms

I'm rather confused by this. I still have no idea what 'anti-racist' mathematics is or how it differs in practice from ordinary (racist?) mathematics. What are its principles? How does the school in question teach anti-racism in maths? Does this mean that there are history components pointing to the contributionss of Arabs and Indians? Does it mean that 'non-western' traditions or notations are taught? What? Paul B 11 Feb 2005, 14.30, UTC

Yeah what is this? This sounds like the dumbest theory someone's ever come up with has been given its own article. What's the basis for thinking this, for example? Come on- with that many sources cited someone has to have explained it.

Localperson118 22:31, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wait... surely this is a BJAODN. "Critics maintain that science, and especially hard science fields such as physics, biology, and mathematics, reflect scientific universals, as opposed to cultural interpretations, i.e. the laws of gravity are the same independent of which cultural region or background an individual descends from." That can't possibly be real. No one, no matter how PC they are, can possibly believe that the laws of gravity would be different for a black man. Localperson118 22:31, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Marion Barry can. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marion_Barry :)

I edited the article to make it clearer that proponents for this line of thinking, such as Sandra Harding, are not necessarily arguing that gravity itself is socially constructed, only that our conceptions and theories about gravity are socially constructed (and contain biases). That being said, some extreme relativists may believe our actual relationship with gravity contains socially constructed features. That would be a view that diverges drastically from scientific theory, but this kind of extreme relativism may be popular in different forms. For example, the popular movie What the bleep do we know appears to contain relativist views regarding physics that conflict with mainstream scientific opinion. Note that the movie features a number of scientists and academics who, while holding views that conflict significantly with most of the rest of academics in their field, appear to hold normal positions at prominent universities. Finally, keep in mind that anti-racist math's line of thought is a relativist, constructivist, and postmodern theory. These schools of thought may not have the same relationship with science that the rest of the intellectual tradition has.

Paul B: the section giving quotes from the Newton Public schools' policy gives examples of how they implemented this theory, though they don't go into the level of detail that you're wondering about. More details can be found at the external link given in the article: In depth analysis of the Newton incident (Gene Experession)--Nectarflowed 10:48, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Anti-racism is one thing, and it is potentially a good thing. Incorporating these views into a mathematics class to such a degree that the mathematics is apparently lost, however, is clearly going too far. If you're going to teach mathematics...teach mathematics! x^2+y^2=1 is the formula for the unit circle, plain and simple. Social studies needs some of this focus, however. Pax 17:59, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I have read this article three times and still have no idea what anti-racist mathematics actually consists of. All I see is a chunk of repetetive text and a list of generic see-alsos. This article needs to feature actual examples to avoid being post-modernist drivel in its own right. --Peter Farago 12:19, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I put a cleanup header on. Someone please give some specifics of what anti-racist math entails. So far its the best argument for reactionism I have heard of in a long time. Frankly, the very concept sounds like a new form of child abuse. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 3 July 2005 00:32 (UTC)

Hi ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸, I'll try to clean it up, according to the criticisms given here. ;) Nectarflowed ^T 8 July 2005 02:09 (UTC)

Hehe, not to be mean, but I'm a Redneck-american, and this article is confusing and outrageous. Its ok if your a proponant, or simply neutrally aware of it, or whatever, but I think we need a more detailed accounting of what precisely "Anti-racist mathematics" would entail (other than a drastic drop in standardised test scores ;). ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 8 July 2005 23:43 (UTC)

You need to start an anti-anti-Redneck-american mathematics movement.

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This sort of a concept is real - google returns over a hundred hits. (Many are Wikipedia mirrors or term paper sales sites, but there is actual discussion of this concept outside of Wikipedia.) Some people really do believe that mathematics, the way it is normally taught in schools, is inherantly and subtly racist. There are all sorts of theories as to whether it's straight lines in geometry, for instance, or the substitution of variables in algebra that has a cultural bias. This sounds bizarre to many of you, and I have no doubt that this will turn out to be fruitless area of research. But there it is.

This strange concept is a direct result of rejecting the idea that average intelligence differs between members of different racial groups. (See Race and intelligence.) If you take as an article of faith that there is no difference between the average innate mathematical ability among white children and black children, and you notice a difference in average math scores, then you have to attribute that to something. Imagine that you teach math, and you know you're not being subtly prejudiced against the black students, but your white students consistently average 85% and your black students average 75%, even when you only look at kids with the same positive family life and the same socio-economic background. (This is quite typical). You want to know why. There are only two possibilities: either white student are more likely to be good at math, or the entire concept of math, the way you teach it, is subtly and systemically biased toward white kids. Many teachers and researchers in America categorically reject the first possibility, and so we get stuck with the second explanation. There's really not a way around this; until we can accept the first possibility (which is difficult, given our nation's history), we won't have a reasonable way of dealing with the persistant differences in test scores. So you get this sort of thing. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 16:37, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

That's a plausible explanation (and better than anything the article offers); if it is accurate (not just personal speculation) perhaps it should be added to the article. Cmadler 02:36, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

This is, I think, the basis of the movement. If so, it needs to be in the article, but with a positive rather than a negative spin.

There is, however, another explanation. A Black Ph.D. in our Computer Science department describes how, dispite his upper-middle class background and high IQ, his high school guidence councelers consistently urged him to take shop instead of mathematics.

I think any attempt to try and present the anti-racist mathematics folks' viewpoints is going to fail. Simply for the reason that they don't understand mathematics and have no idea what they are criticising. I've never found arguments about the inherent racism of "western mathematics" nor arguments that this obstructs learning by members of minority groups convincing at all. I think proponents haven't really focused on arguing this, just accepting it as fact and making political arguments.

Note that I am not against ethnomathematics in general...but those that charge racism are undoubtedly only a part of the ethnomathematics community. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 22:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the abusive title of the section criticisms. The individual who made them were obviously incapable of rational argument. Nukemason 12:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation

My guess is that its both accurate personal speculation ;) The question is, can we (or perhaps Quadell w his obvious insight) explain this "math is racist, lets change it" POV in the article, which currently inspires alot of eyebrow raising. Just to let you know, I admit to having shown this article to several people just for a laugh. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 02:50, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

What I'd like to see is an example of what the heck their trying to teach these kids with. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 02:56, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Info

The book "Science Question in Feminism" by Sandra G. Harding is a sort of precursor to all this. It contains the following explanatory quote:

If we are not willing to try to see the favored intellectual structures and practices of science as cultural artifacts rather than as sacred commandments handed down to humanity at the birth of modern science, then it will be hard to understand how gender symbolism, the gendered social structure of science, and the masculine identities and behaviors of individual scientists have left their marks on the problematics, concepts, theories, methods, interpretations, ethics, meanings, and goals of science.

That's a chewey sentence to parse, but the gist is that "intellectual structures and practices of science" are "cultural artifacts", not laws of nature, and sexism has affected the "concepts, theories, methods. . . and goals of science."

Anti-racist math is sometimes called ethnomathematics, and proponants sometimes call themselves ethnomathematicians. And here is the Ethnomathematics Digital Library. And here is a book on the topic. It seems to teach a sort of sociology and history of math along with math concepts. You learn addition, but you learn how different indiginous cultures taught addition. It also focuses on visual math (7 X 9 is a rectangle 7 dots wide and 9 dots deep), rather than numerical math.

that last is obviously a good thing. Considering how badly math is taught in the US, maybe a dollop of anti-racist math is just what we need -- if judiciously applied.

Here's a word from a detractor:

"The practical effect," Klein says, "has been watered-down math books that overemphasize inductive reasoning (like continuing visual patterns), because this is supposed to be good for women and minorities, and de-emphasizing deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs, which is the heart of mathematics, because that supposedly favors white males. . . ."

Here's a quote that might help, from a poorly-written news story.

"I think of [multicultural education] as a set of practices that confront the various forms of racism and institutionalized racisms that do exist in schools, as well as the larger society, and thinking of ways of breaking down and deconstructing forms of racism," Christine Sleeter, professor emeritus at California State University at Monterey Bay and co-editor of "Multicultural Education, Critical Pedagogy, and the Politics of Difference," said. "I think that a whole lot of people are fumbling around with, 'what are the issues?'"

"One of the ways I would apply anti-racist education to math is to ask, 'why is it that, generally speaking, white kids get better access to upper-level math learning than low-income kids and kids of color?'" Sleeter said. "[And] in what ways might math and science serve as tools for understanding and dealing with various social issues?"

Also, Newton, Massachusetts got some unwanted publicity when re-writing their math curriculum. They were already in a bit of a bind because black students were failing at a higher rate than white students, and charges of racism were being directed at the school. So the new math curriculum was written to emphasize "Newton's commitment to active anti-racist education". The first priority for the class was listed as "Respect for Human Differences - students will live out the system wide core of 'Respect for Human Differences' by demonstrating anti-racist/anti-bias behaviors. Students will: Consistently analyze their experiences and the curriculum for bias and discrimination; Take effective anti-bias action when bias or discrimination is identified; Work with people of different backgrounds and tell how the experience affected them; Demonstrate how their membership in different groups has advantages and disadvantages that affect how they see the world and the way they are perceived by others..." Priority two was actually teaching math.

Needless to say, the conservative press went into a feeding-frenzy over this. (It's a story that makes Massachusetts liberals look really dumb.) Newton insists that teaching math was always the first priority of math class, despite what the curiculum said, and they chalk it up to an anti-liberal witch-hunt.

Feel free to use any of this in the article. I'm not gonna mess with it, personally. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 04:52, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Add Warning?

I think this article should warn the reader at the very beginning that:

• anti-racist mathematics is not a branch of mathematical study
• the article does NOT discuss any mathematics per se, but rather addresses some issue in the practice/teaching of mathematics

Actually, as it stands the article is so vague as to be useless. Unless it is significantly improved soon, maybe someone could distill it to a sentence or two on the ethnomathematics page or a similarly appropriate place and start a vote for deletion. --David Dumas 23:38, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 22:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I would think it's appropriate to tag it with the 'pseudoscience' tag they use when they discuss creationism... Of course, if we were to be consistent about that, most of pedagogy would end up with that tag, but that's a different story altogether... - JS

[edit] Change Title?

I'd like to see the title changed to something less vague and not so easily misconstruable. Any suggestions? --24.126.30.46 07:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The title reflects the name used for the scholarly field.--Nectar ^T 07:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The explanation of this article that Quadell gives above would suggest that the article should be called "Anti-racist mathematics pedagogy" or ". . . education". The current title is terribly confusing and I would strongly encourage that it be changed. Hydriotaphia 03:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

We don't get to choose what fields of study choose to call themselves. At Columbia University, studies of homosexuality are called "Queer Studies". That name seems as strange to me as "Anti-racist mathematics" does, but that is how they self-identify, and so their preference needs to be respected. Homosexuals have a right to call themselves anything they want, just as Black rappers do. So do Black mathematicians. Rick Norwood 15:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Um, sure. But what do black mathematicians have to do with this article?? What black mathematicians research nowadays, is in the eyes of some of these education researchers, just as "racist", since they are part of the current mathematical community. It's a mistake to confuse ethnomathematics researchers with black mathematicians. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 22:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's true, provided, however, that the field really does have a consensus about what to call itself. Does it? Hydriotaphia 18:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to say I've read some of the ethnomathematics literature and the term "anti-racist mathematics", IMHO, does not appear to be used, except in perhaps the media coverage. But I'm not an expert on this stuff. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 22:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I've often seen the term "ethnomathematics" (which I consider to be a branch of sociology, not math), but never before "anti-racist mathematics". I would prefer a change in the title, even if only to facilitate people searching for more information. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Well

Forgive me for this comment, but this is the first time I've ever read an article and still have no idea what the subject is about. I'm not sure there's even a real movement here, maybe a few offhanded comments by TV personalities, but nothing that really seems to be solid... --Joewithajay 02:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Responding to Joewithajay's points one by one:

1. "...still have no idea what the subject is about..." - but you seem to have a clear enough concept of the subject to have formed a strong opinion about it.
2. "...a few offhanded comments by TV personalities..." - I can't find any references to comments by TV personalities in the article. What exactly do you have in mind here ?
3. "...nothing that really seems to be solid..." - don't the 9 reference and 6 external links in the article show that the subject is "solid" ? You may not agree with its proponents, but it is certainly widely discussed.

Gandalf61 09:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

At 30,000 feet and 600 mph, I want the design engineer to be an absolute expert of the White Man's math.24.10.102.46 02:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent reversions

I reverted Sam Spade's revert as there were several problems with his edit. For one, he cites two sources to backup the statement that anti-racist mathematical curriculum reduces test scores. But only the first gives any info to support the claim. The second, while a very interesting article, stays neutral on many of the discussed topics, including whether reformed curriculum such as TERC is bad, etc. It comments on declining test scores but comments that culture may be most important. It comments briefly on the first cite (and reproduces that article in its entirety) but does not say much additional info beyond an affirmation of it.

But finally and most important, NPOV means we should not accept these commentators' opinions as fact and blanketly assert that something has been "shown" when it is controversial. First, we should get more solid citations than the ones given to support such a claim; actual studies, rather than investigative journalism should be preferred here. And secondly, unless the evidence against is overwhelming (which really doesn't appear to be the case so far, although I agree with the cited articles), such criticism should not be mentioned so prominently in the introduction. There's already a pretty good section on criticism. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 17:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] racism

Proponents of anti-racist mathematics believe that anti-racist education programs have the potential to correct imbalances and to have beneficial results on test scores and examination results in some minority groups.

In my village this is called racism --Lucinos 13:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

you live in a weird village. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.157.228.170 (talk • contribs).

[edit] examples

Can anyone add examples about how an anti-racist math book or math class would differ from those which are not anti-racist? That might help with the difficulty in understanding.

[edit] Hoax

This is without a doubt the most ridiculous article ever to survive AFD with near-unanimous Keep votes. This article reads like somebody's BJAODN spoof of political correctness at its most absurd extreme. Can somebody confirm that this is even a real concept? If so, is it notable or just a tiny lunatic fringe of two or three academics? It is a parody of political correctness? A hoax? If somebody can't source this article it needs to be submitted for another AFD vote. KleenupKrew 10:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

References are present in the references section.--Nectar 10:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opposites

I know that the existence of something does not always entail the existence of its opposite (eg: absolute zero - well, that one's kind of fuzzy). But if you're going to have an article on Anti-racist mathematics, you need an article on Racist mathematics or Racial mathematics for comparison.

User:NukeMason 08:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This article's explanation of anti-racist mathematics should probably just include the argument of why normal math is racist.--Nectar 11:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased against whom?

The article does not mention which racial groups traditional "Western" math is biased against. It cannot possibly be the view of anti-racist math proponents that it is biased against all "non-Westerners"? It does not seem to be biased against Koreans and Japanese anyway: [1]. --Fluude 12:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why do these "racist" mathematics not affect Asians?

Sorry, but this is so much BS. The Whites who allow the third world hordes to flood their nations are so far removed from common sense that we need to call math "racist?" Please. In the USA the only people that fail at high rates (such as a police exam) are Blacks and Browns(Hispanics). Asians never seem to have a problem why? I don't think it's difficult to look at people who have made advanced countries and those that never had a wheel. Volksgeist 19:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Article talk pages are not places to post little rants, and "third world hordes" is pretty hateful sounding terminology, especially when combined with the rest of it. Please knock it off. --Fastfission 04:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A new attempt to modify this page's title

I am back at point 7 of this discussion page. (The article was recently translated in French, and I discovered it on the fr Wikipedia).

In this section, I could notice a rough answer by Nectarflowed «The title reflects the name used for the scholarly field.», sustained by Rick Norwood : «At Columbia University, studies of homosexuality are called "Queer Studies".», which seems quite irrelevant.

At least two users, Hydriotaphia and Chan-Ho have strongly put Nectarflowed's assertion in doubt, but received no proof of it.

Having a look at the bibliography at the end of the article, I notice that at least the first two items don't use "anti-racist mathematics" but "anti-racist mathematics teaching" (where anti-racist may apply to "teaching", which seems much less odd).

If no strong and sourced opposition arises, I shall modify the title of this page to "Anti-racist mathematics teaching" in a few days from now. --French Tourist 19:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be better. Mathematics is never racist, so applying "anti-racist" to it seems silly. Teaching can, of couse, convey most sorts of biases. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No examples

The first comment on this discussion page has gone unanswered: there isn't an example of what the article is talking about. I suspect hoax, as well. Nobody has produced a single example of "anti-racist mathematics" for the article. Tempshill 23:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)