Search

This research investigates African immigrant families' experiences and perspectives of their children's (10-15-year-old) mathematics learning in the home, community and school settings within the Greater Vancouver area. The study employs the concept of cultural capital framework and Afrocentric worldviews to understand how African immigrant parents support their children’s mathematics learning at the upper elementary and middle grade levels (Grades 4 - 8) in Canada. Specifically, the study addressed the following questions: i) which socio-cultural strategies and understandings do African immigrant families living in a large metropolis draw upon to support their children’s mathematics learning? ii) what are African immigrant families’ experiences and perspectives with respect to their (10–15-year olds) children’s mathematics learning in the home, community and school settings, within the Greater Vancouver Area? The study’s findings indicate that, African immigrant parents 1) were aware of the gatekeeping function of mathematics and its role in reproducing or disrupting race or class hierarchies and 2) perceived their support for their children’s mathematics fluency as a sure way for securing a status for counterbalancing their social exclusion and positioning themselves as people of education and intellect. The study’s findings also indicate that immigrant families leveraged various forms of capital in support of their children’s mathematics learning: Cultural, linguistic, aspirational, technological/digital and navigational capital. These forms of capital extend the narrowly conceived definitions of capital as accumulated wealth, resources, and experiences of white middle-class families. The results of the study are significant in that they provide much- needed insights into ways to build culturally responsive mathematics education informed by African immigrant students’ and families’ funds of knowledge.

Although emergent literature and anecdotal experience indicate the importance of parental involvement in their children’s mathematics learning, there is still a void in literature with regard to involvement of parents with low formal education in their children’s mathematics learning in culturally diverse contexts. In an attempt to address this void, a study that employed socio cultural learning and social constructivist theories investigated how parents with low formal education are involved in their children’s mathematics learning in a rural Community, Ghana. Data was collected from six parents with low formal education, their 8-9 year old children as well as the children’s class teachers through semi-structured individual face to face interviews and home visit observations. Analysis of the data corpus revealed that 1) parents’ mentorship and engagement in local business transactions, were used as learning and evaluation contexts for a child’s mathematics competence; 2) parents perceived giving and receiving correct change as a key indicator of one’s moral standing and mediated children’s mathematics accordingly; 3) parents, teachers and children consider mathematics as a hallmark of future success; 4) parents’ belief that increasing time spent on academic activities improved children’s success, within the examination culture of the context;5) teachers see low formal education as a handicap of parental involvement in children’s mathematics learning; 6) children typically corroborate their parents’ perceived ways of supporting their mathematics learning. These findings are significant and offer insight into how parents with low formal education from a different cultural context are involved in their older children’s mathematics learning. The study adds to the literature on the topic of parental involvement from a non-western context.