Rethinking Mathematics
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Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers is a controversial 2005 book edited by Eric Gutstein and Bob Peterson, advocating a mathematics education curriculum that intertwines mathematics with social justice. The various essays in the book, including "Home Buying While Brown or Black" and "Sweatshop Accounting", advocate both using social-justice issues to motivate the teaching of rigorous mathematical concepts, and the use of mathematics education as a way of promoting ideas of social justice.
Critics derided the work as an attempt to subvert mathematics education for partisan political purposes, while the authors defended it as a useful way to motivate mathematics for a wide range of students.
[edit] References
- "Calculating controversy", NEA Today, April 2006.
- Diane Ravitch. "Ethnomathematics", The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2005.