A cultural visit in mathematics education

In the Swedish curriculum for the social science education programs mathematical education there is a paragraph which states that ...the students shall deepen their insight into how mathematics has been influenced by people from many different cultures, and how mathematics has developed and still continues to develop (Skolverket,2000). How do we achieve this goal in mathematics education? Inspired by ethnomathematics this paper describes a teaching sequence containing two parts. The students in an upper secondary class in Sweden received an introduction to ethnomathematics subsequent discussion about mathematics and the global questions that it raised. This introduction was followed by a study visit where the students had the opportunity to study ethnomathematics in Australian Aboriginal art. The students' encounted geometry, functions and arithmetical progressions. Some students chose to discuss what mathematics is and what post constructions in art are.