Open Collections

Saito, Tsubasa

University of British Columbia

Even if students move to a different country and successfully use a new language, it does not follow that they can learn and do mathematics in the same way as in their home country. These students can be living in the in-between space where linguistic and cultural differences might affect their approaches to learning mathematics. This qualitative nested-case study investigated the mathematics learning of 14 high school students studying mathematics simultaneously in English at a Canadian school and in Japanese at a Japanese school (hoshuko) within a Canadian city. Data collection included Zoom video-recorded initial individual interviews with participants, paired tasks in which participants crafted original mathematics word problems in both English and Japanese, and follow-up individual interviews. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis of students’ perspectives and experiences of learning mathematics and their attention to word problem structure, written form, mathematical structure, incorporation of personal experience in narratives, and language choice in shaping their word problems. Data from three focal pairs were then analyzed to provide a deeper understanding of their sense-making of word problems. To provide further insight into participants’ experience, word problems from several representative Canadian textbooks and a Japanese textbook were analyzed in terms of their structure, content, and relationship to local educational traditions and contexts. Findings indicate that while students learned mathematics comprehensively in both languages and contexts, they perceived Japanese and Canadian mathematics as possessing different features. Some students described learning mathematics in hoshuko as “deep,” and learning in Canadian schools as “wide”. These students reported that Japanese mathematics classrooms often explore concepts via an abstract problem-centered approach, while Canadian classrooms focus more on content applicable to real-world contexts. In moving between languages and cultures, students reported learning mathematics comprehensively by finding commonalities and connections based on mathematical words and concepts in both English and Japanese. Word problem tasks revealed that students’ sense-making manifested inconsistently across the languages (e.g., Japanese word problems often omitted the context). These findings offer support to educators in understanding the lived challenges of multilingual　students and how they perceive and negotiate cultural and linguistic differences in mathematics education.

Text

2024-03-28

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87653

Curriculum Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/