The decision by one of the fringe parties in the upcoming European parliament elections to engage in ‘anti-immigrant’ propaganda highlights some of the challenges for those of us engaged in education.
It shows again that racism enters into public life from many sources: political, economic, cultural and interpersonal. Since racist messages come from so many different sources in our society, we cannot expect schools to simply ‘teach racism out of existence’. We all know that schools are often asked to deal with every social issue that arises as if that gives the state the right to opt out of all other responsibility for the problem in question. Unfortunately, such a strategy will never succeed.
At the same time, schools are not powerless.
Part of the ‘anti-immigrant’ propaganda being put forward at the moment rests upon the manipulation of figures for PPS numbers being issued each year. The use of such statistics and figures is intended to give veneer of objectivity to such positions. Although such statistics can easily be questioned and analysed and the prejudice that underpins them can be exposed, this often does not happen in media commentary. It is left to the listener or reader to decode the statistics and identify the ideology that they conceal.
The capacities to read, decode, and understand the ideological position that is hidden behind statistics is a key part of intercultural competence. This means we need to link student’s mathematical studies to the politics of real life, and to enable them to see that things that are often presented as matters of ‘fact’ can be used to justify dangerous prejudices. The same goes, of course, for ’statements of fact’ that are not presented in the form of numbers, but students of post-primary English generally do get the opportunity to learn the skills of critical reading of the media. Can the same be said for students of Mathematics?
Do we make ‘equals’ a central concept in our school mathematics?
