Abstract:
Mathematics appears as a relatively stable and unquestioned arena of knowledge and schooling practice. However, Western mathematical knowledge has been and remains an integral part of colonisation, of Western imperialism and of capitalist culture, centrally enacted through gatekeeping and exclusion in schooling through the application of the concept of mathematical ability. In this paper, I will apply the work of international scholars of critical maths education to the Australian context to discuss dominant understandings of students’ mathematical ability, which imply an individualised, deficit-based construal of students’ maths learning. I will then provide some alternative visions of a decolonising maths education in Australia that arise from challenges to dominant understandings of mathematical ability, particularly in terms of relationality, storytelling and healing, and what these visions could mean for just maths education.