Pedagogies to support Indigenous students’ mathematics learning in rural and remote Queensland classrooms

Abstract

This paper explores pedagogies that support Indigenous students learning of mathematics. Three schools in a remote and rural area of Queensland participated in a longitudinal intervention study, extending over a three-year period (2002-4), which aimed to improve Indigenous students' mathematics outcomes by improving their teachers' knowledge and classroom practices. This paper reports on one aspect of the project, namely the pedagogical approaches used by their non-Indigenous teachers before intervention. Results are related to Harris (1980) and indicate that many of the common classroom practices believed to forward mathematics outcomes for Indigenous students simply reflect 'good' mathematics pedagogy for all. The dimensions that were distinctive but absent in these communities were an acknowledgement of the different knowledges of these culturally different students, the nuances and social capital associated with Indigenous English, and the role that parents, care-givers and the community itself plays in young Indigenous students’ mathematical education. It is conjectured that this could be a result of the inexperience of the teachers in such communities and/or the predominant white view of education prevalent in these three schools.