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 Anti-racist mathematics 2 Is this article a joke? 3 Anti-BIASED Mathematics 4 Confused 5 Summary 6 edit, August 27, 2005 7 Some Article Criticisms 8 Explanation 9 Info 10 Add Warning? 11 Change Title? 12 Well 13 Recent reversions 14 racism 15 examples 16 Hoax 17 Opposites 18 Biased against whom? 19 Why do these "racist" mathematics not affect Asians? 20 A new attempt to modify this page's title 21 No examples 22 Strange sentences in section Context 23 What is this 24 suggestion for clarification 25 Contested Proposal for Deletion 26 'anti-racist mathematics' and 'ethnomathematics' 27 proposal for title change and/or merge

[edit] Anti-racist mathematics

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[edit] Is this article a joke?

How about Anti-racist science? Or anti-racist grammar. This article should be deleted, wikipedia is not a soapbox. Mogg flunkie 00:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-BIASED Mathematics

The anti-RACIST Mathematics phrase gets more attention. But BIAS has probably occurred far more often in the Politics of Mathematics than has racism. This is just a point worth making on Wikipedia - afterall, how does anyone know what mathematics is without knowing how it's really practiced?

Perhaps the site could be renamed with the race part being a subsection, with the usual subsection diverts? It depends upon your position on such matters, of course. MrASingh 20:42, 11 Feb 2007 (UTC)

I think that renaming makes sense. futurebird 20:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just posted a bunch of other criticisms below, but I can't resist one final clarification. Fundamentally, very little of this seems to have anything to do with mathematics, and most of it appears to have to do with the instruction of mathematics. Fair grading, fair instruction, naming theories in non-biased ways--none of this has to do with math. The theory name is not math; the theory is math, and it is either true or not true. As I said earlier (below), it seems inherently very difficult for an encyclopedia--a repository of knowledge--to embrace the notion of subjective truth or relativism (even an encyclopedia that's a wiki), yet that is the only portion of "anti-racist mathematics" that could have anything to do with mathematics. All the rest could quite well be lumped into an article labeled "anti-racist mathematics teaching."

S. Ugarte 01:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

The avoidance of racial stereotypes or cultural bias in classroom materials, textbooks, coursework topics and examination questions. How can classroom materials be culturally biased? 127.0.0.1 00:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The next two paragraphs don't explicitly answer your question :

Nobody is stating that mathematics is intrinsically racist (so textbook questions don't discriminate on the grounds of race - and often don't if exam marks are anything to go by).

The next point worth making is that, even in the case of exam papers and questions, it is highly likely that machine marked questions will provide a better (ie: more objective) indicator of ability than human marked questions (a good way to determine this is to carry out a study that shows how different rankings are achieved by humans that might mark written scripts, and compare this to how machines generate different rankings).

Now to answer your question. The obvious history of mathematics part (ie: Mr {insert name of white mathematician that we should all grovel before, certainly if we are not white), invented such and such a mathematical function (which is obvious anyhow, but wasn't obvious at the time). This shounds like 'cultural bias'. Of course it may be true (I'm not a revisionist), but is it necessary for study? MrASingh 20:42, 11 Feb 2007 (UTC)

[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)

I response to the above individuals (clearly mistaken) banterings, nominating this article for deletion would be wholly inappropriate. It is interesting, however, that a mathematician should complain about “fancy [verbal] footwork” when responding to criticism of racism in mathematics (as a symptom of an inherently racist society – for example, the US or the UK). But, when given even more opportunities to do so, does not complain about the self-same (and, may I add, even more blatant) verbal footwork in the mathematical publications that he/she is all to happy to use as a convenient excuse for their over inflated pay-packets. May I advise that, when someone tells you the truth, you think before you criticise it? Or would a white mathematician be all to happy to say that mathematics (and truth with it) are white? Certainly this is something that the white race is all too happy to do in newspapers and the media - if not society in general.

Nukemason4 17:03, 06 February 2007 (UTC)

At 30,000 feet and 600 mph, I want the design engineer to be an absolute expert of the White Man's math.67.169.236.128 23:05, 24 February 2007 (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)

Or that Wikipedia has. A relativist, constructivist, postmodern encyclopedia would seemingly be of little use to anyone--though I suppose being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit," Wikipedia is already somewhat closer to that position than Britannica. S. Ugarte 19:42, 18 March 2007 (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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       My 2 cents. . .
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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)

Firstly, you are commenting upon mathematicians *in Korea and Japan*. The article is generally focused on the US and UK as follows : "Anti-racist mathematics is a branch of education reform theory in countries such as the U.S. and the UK, which attempts to form an anti-bias curriculum in mathematics. "

Secondly, the test referred to in the scores given has not been put online (thus, there is the potential that the test is biased, or that it only tests specific problem-solving abilities, etc...). The test also refers to 15 year olds only, so it doesn't show up what is happening to students *after* that time - most fields medalists/nobel prize winners/technologically competent scientists and engineers (in the military, etc....) would probably 'come to fruition' at a later age.

Thirdly, mathematics is probably taught very differently in those countries than in the US (one would hope there's less politics and a more 'socialistic' treatment of mathematicians that relies more on objective mathematical assessment than blagging ability).

These are points straight off the top of my head. There are obviously many more.

--MrASingh 13:20, 10 Feb 2007 (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)

Would a renaming of the article sound better? I don't think that renaming the article is suitable at all. To take CRGreathouse's statement to an extreme - mathematics is one thing that is completely separated from the way that it's taught and socially practiced. Any working mathematicians knows that this is quite untrue (aside from, perhaps, the case of Godel, who locked himself up in a room and starved himself to death due to an extreme paranoia towards all things European - probably including himself...). It is possible for mathematicians to (conceivably) do mathematics without any actual social component (automated theorem proving is a budding area in these regards). However, I don't see how it is that this would in anyway be a suitable method of *teaching* mathematics.

To re-iterate my point, an separating the mathematics from the way that it's practised is a VERY odd thing to do. --AnonymousButSensible 14:33, 29 December 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)

I completely agree. I have no idea "westernizations" they are trying to "adjust." The name algebra being kept is a counter-example. . . (John User:Jwy talk) 21:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strange sentences in section Context

The first two sentences of the section Context are weird:

1. Anti-racist mathematics is part of a larger social constructivist movement in which traditional Western or scientific world views were developed within the context of a Judeo–Christian Western culture or set of cultures.
2. Anti-racist educators suggest that these assumptions are dominant because of the abuse of political power.

Sentence 1 says that anti-racist mathematics was part of the development of traditional Western views in the context of Judeo–Christian Western culture, or something like that. There are too many "or"s in the sentence to really figure out what the claim is, but in any case, this is almost the opposite of what (presumably) is intended, namely that anti-racist mathematics was developped in opposition to such traditional Western views. Then sentence 2 speaks of "these assumptions". But the first sentence does not refer to any assumptions? So what assumptions are these? There is no antecedent, and lacking further information it could many anything. Also, in the clause "because of the abuse of political power", it is completely unspecified who are abusing this power. Is this writing part of an attempt of opponents of "anti-racist mathematics", whatever that may be (the article is extremely vague and uninformative) to make it appear bad? --Lambiam^Talk 19:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is this

This article needs to do a better job of explaining exactly what anti-racist mathematics is. How is it different from normal ("racist"?) math. I really don't understand how anyone, no matter how liberal they are, could actually believe that math is racist. Prb4 6:02:52 February 13 2007 (UTC)

I (fairly liberal by US standards) wholly agree. There's nothing in here that explains what this actually is in the context of math (the four bullet points explain how one would avoid bias in teaching the history of math (the first bullet) and in coaching and grading students (the latter three), but not how one would avoid bias--or even what form that bias would take--in mathematics itself).

I realize that this article has been voted to be retained, but without a significant cleanup, I recommend at the very least that it be renamed something like "anti-racist math teaching", as that seems to be what this is really about--how to teach math without introducing racism. And why the hell that's notable or encyclopedic beats me.

Also, one particular nitpick, this following line in "Criticism" is totally inappropriate. The Criticism section is not the place for responses to criticism; it's the place to list criticism.

However, critics would have to accept that the methods and means needed to freely study and evaluate mathematics and science are usually politically and socially manipulated in favour of certain groups (as, for example, cars are distributed in a discriminatory way, so are scientific resources that are involved with them).

I, if I can be said to be a critic, would not accept that. It's just not relevant to the preceding criticism. These facts are indeed objective facts, and how the resources to study them were (perhaps unfairly) allocated simply is a non sequitur.

Granted, I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve here--I readily admit that the entire concept strikes me as absurd, and the lack of any substantial mathematical content makes me doubt the qualifications of those complaining here (in that, for instance, no actual alternate names for theorems or constructs are proposed--I couldn't care less if you want to rename them from their Western-mathematician-honoring-names, but without proposing new names that will be universally accepted by mathematicians of all cultures and races, what's the point in talking about it?)--but more to the point, this article seems highly un-encyclopedic; it makes Wikipedia something of a laughingstock (not that I feel beholden to Conservopedia, but some of their criticisms, while perhaps not showing an evil Liberal bias, do show at the very least a lack of good quality entries on some topics); quite simply this article, without a major cleanup, doesn't appear to show anything significant, noteworthy, or useful.

S. Ugarte 19:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] suggestion for clarification

Reading the article, I found that dividing up the general thread of anti-racist mathematics beneficial. I came up with 4 sub-topics, which might help focus criticism and defence if incorporated into the main article:

(1)anti-racist mathematics as the active removal of bias from within math curricula, particularly, racist or culturally specific word problems.

then

(2)anti-racist mathematics as the effort to balance coverage of historical developments in mathematics across cultures/races. It has been argued that removing all historical / sociological information from math materials would solve this problem of balancing.

then

(3)anti-racist mathematics as a movement to ensure a non-racist or anti-racist classroom environment for learning ma.

and finally

(4)anti-racist mathematics as a movement to do away with, or at least challenge the primacy of, actual mathematical representation and operation systems, and recognizing the current work done in math as racially biased.

I think it would be useful to make these distinctions because, while I agree with 1, with 2 insofar as I think history of math does not improve understanding of math and should be removed from math clas, and with 3, although this is more an issue with inherent racisism within society / school and has very little to do with math, I disagree with 4. It seems that most people on this discussion page also disagree with this 4th category, and, taking it to be the entirety of the arguement, are against anti-racist math.

Dialectric 23:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

My confusion is that "anti-racist math" would seem to imply number 4 in your list, while most (all?) of the article appears to be about the first three. The thing is, the first three aren't really mathematics; they could be aptly summed under "anti-racist history" (history of mathematics) or "anti-racist teaching." Both have value, and I suspect most people here agree on that point, but neither have anything to do with mathematics. The article should clearly stay, as it's a term relatively widely used, but as-is, it reads as a bit POV (to say the least!), and devotes a lot of attention to something that appears not to warrant it. Anti-racist mathematics is a term used to refer to the first three, perhaps (at least, this article makes it sound that way); there seems to be no discussion of how the mathematics itself can be anti-racist or racist (which renders the article pretty much useless).

S. Ugarte 19:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contested Proposal for Deletion

I just contested a proposal for deletion, but forgot to write why in my edit summary. In brief, I see no reason that the previous AFD verdict was not valid, and there seems to be plenty of talk about this topic around the internet, including a lot of credible sources. I tend to agree that the concept itself is a little flaky, but if that was a valid criterion for deletion I could take out two thirds of Wikipedia. Sarcasticidealist 21:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

It is really complete nonsense, and not really the normal kind of article we have on Wikipedia. Besides from this article nobody can really know what is meant by racist mathematics? If you decide to keep it why don't you make an article on racist mathematics?

I agree that there's some underlying incoherence in the whole philosophy, but I'm not here to defend the philosophy, I'm here to defend the idea that the philosophy is notable enough to deserve a Wikipedia article. In any event, if you want to debate its deletion, here isn't the place - AFD it if you want, bearing in mind that the last AFD on this article resulted in a near-unanimous keep. Sarcasticidealist 08:10, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'anti-racist mathematics' and 'ethnomathematics'

Quote: "While 'anti-racist mathematics' and 'ethnomathematics' scholars share the assumption that any given mathematical understanding or practice is a product of a particular culture, the forms of their scholarship differ considerably and should not be confused with one another."

What's the difference between 'anti-racist mathematics' and 'ethnomathematics'? SecurID 16:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] proposal for title change and/or merge

I suggest that the title of this article be changed to 'anti-racist mathematics instruction' to more accurately reflect its content. I support the suggestion to merge this article with anti-bias curriculum - this is basically an anti-bias math curriculum article, and has some content which applies to all anti-bias/anti-racist teaching and not just math.

Dialectric 14:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Agree I also support the suggestion to merge this article with the anti-bias curriculum article.--Jdavid2008 17:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)