Positions and purposes for contextualisation in mathematics education in South Africa

Abstract

In this article, papers reviewed in the position paper (Venkat, Adler, Rollnick, Setati & Vhurumuku, 2009) relating to questions of contextualisation in mathematics education are analysed and used to develop a tentative framework consisting of two aspects. The first aspect relates to the position taken on contextualisation with three categories identified (‘advocacy’, ‘advocacy but…’ and ‘does not advocate’). The second aspect relates to the underlying purpose for which contextualisation is used with four key motivations emerging within the sample (‘mathematical’, ‘utilitarian’, ‘cultural affirmation’ and ‘critical democratic citizenship’). Taken together, the two aspects can be combined into a tentative framework which can be used as an analytical tool that allows for an initial dis-aggregation of the broader literature in the area of contextualisation in mathematics education, as well as for thinking about the design and use of contextualised tasks.