BETWEEN MATHEMATICS AND ETHNOMATHEMATICS: training, conceptions and practices of teachers who work in Agricultural Family Schools
Ethnomathematics, Rural Education, Teacher Training, Mathematics Education, Pedagogy of Alternation.
This research is the result of a critical-reflective deepening amid the concerns that are outlined in the research question: How does the presence, or absence, of Ethnomathematics in initial or continuing education influence the conceptions and practices of mathematics teachers at Escolas Família Agrícola (EFA) in the State of Rondônia? Thus, the research aimed to investigate how the presence or absence of Ethnomathematics in teacher training influences the conceptions and practices of mathematics teachers at Escolas Família Agrícola (EFA) in Rondônia. To this end, some specific objectives were outlined: To verify evidence or absences of Ethnomathematics in the training of mathematics teachers who work in EFA; Identify conceptions of mathematics, rural education and mathematics teaching-learning by EFA mathematics teachers; To analyze how the practices of EFA mathematics teachers approach or distance themselves from the assumptions of Ethnomathematics in the development of their teaching activities related to teaching mathematics. As a theoretical reference, the research was based on authors from the field of initial and continued teacher training, from the field of Ethnomathematics and Rural Education. The research presents a qualitative approach, with data generated from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews carried out in high school Agricultural Families Schools located in the state of Rondônia: Ji-Paraná, Ouro Preto and Novo Horizonte. The subjects of this study are three teachers who teach Mathematics in these schools, in the context of the Pedagogy of Alternation. For the analysis of the collected data, Discursive Textual Analysis was used as a technique, in its three phases of unitarization, categorization and metatext. Among the main results, we highlight the understanding of the interlocutors of this research about rural education, referring to it as an education related to the reality of the student, the family and the community that surrounds him, valuing the knowledge derived from his culture, his experience. This requires a teaching of mathematics that is done in a contextualized way, working from the empirical knowledge that the student brings with him, seeking to understand the knowledge/doing of this subject, providing a construction and reconstruction of knowledge, since in these conditions the relationship theory/practice is in permanent interaction.