Making math culturally relevant is no longer a niche teaching strategy; it’s a necessity. Students learn best when they can connect abstract concepts to their lived experiences, their history, and their community. This approach, often called Ethnomathematics, is particularly powerful for diverse populations—including Hispanic, Muslim, Indigenous, and other ethnic communities—whose mathematical contributions are frequently overlooked in standard curricula.
But where do you find the ideas? The secret is to look beyond the textbook and into the community itself.
Math is inherent within the hispanic/latino community via their rich traditions business practices, and arts. Many Hispanic communities have strong traditions of small businesses or informal commerce. Use algebra to model profit margins for a paletería (ice cream shop), calculate compound interest for family savings, or analyze the cost-benefit of remittances sent abroad.
Look at the art and architecture within this community for geometric concepts. Analyze the intricate symmetry and tiling patterns (teselados) found in Spanish colonial architecture, Aztec and Mayan pyramids, or traditional Mexican papel picado (cut paper art). Students can use geometry and transformations to recreate the designs.
Dive into music and dance for ratios and fractions. Explore the rhythms of salsa, cumbia, or mariachi. Students can use fractions and ratios to break down musical timing signatures like 4/4 or3/4 and create proportional models of dance steps.
The history of math is deeply indebted to Islamic scholars, and their cultural practices offer clear mathematical connections. Islamic art is famous for its intricate, non-figurative geometric patterns, called girih. Students can use transformations (rotations, reflections), angles, and polygon properties to study and replicate these beautiful tile patterns . This is a natural fit for high school geometry. The five daily prayers (Salat) are determined by the sun’s position. Students can use celestial mechanics and spherical trigonometry—disciplines heavily advanced by medieval Muslim scholars—to calculate prayer times for different locations and dates.
Indigenous math is profoundly connected to the land, ecology, and traditional knowledge systems. Examine the practical math involved in traditional practices, such as calculating the wood needed to build a longhouse or lodge, estimating the harvest yield from a certain plot, or determining sustainable hunting/fishing quotas.
Many Indigenous groups, such as the Yuki of California, used unique number systems based on body parts rather than the standard base-10. Studying these systems (like base-8 or base-20) deepens students' understanding of place value and mathematical structure.
Analyze the complex patterns and knots in weaving, which require advanced spatial reasoning and logic. Students can explore concepts of topology (the study of shapes that can be stretched or bent) through these practical arts.
It is the teacher's role to be researcher or listener. Start by asking students what they do outside of school. What are their family’s businesses? What does their place of worship look like? What hobbies involve measurement or money? Speak with community leaders, local artists, and parents about traditional trades, crafts, or historical practices.
Look for university research papers or books on Ethnomathematics that document the specific mathematical practices of ethnic groups in your region. For Alaskan, specifically the Yup'iks, look for material called "Math In A Cultural Context" as this has multiple volumes with practical suggestions and is downloadable for free through UAF.
By embedding mathematics in the history and contemporary life of your students, you stop teaching to them and start teaching with them, transforming math from a hurdle into an inherited tool. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. Have a great day.
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