Parental Involvement in Children’s mathematics learning: Case of Nkanfoa, South Western part of Ghana.

Kwesi Yaro, masters student (Mathematics Education)

This study reports a case study I carried out in Nkanfoa rural Community in Cape Coast, South-western part of Ghana. The study focused on parents from diverse social, cultural, economic backgrounds with low formal education and how these parents support their grade four children’s mathematics learning. In this study, fourteen respondents, comprising of three parents with low formal education, their 8-9 year old children as well as the children’s classroom teachers (one from each of the two rural basic schools), participated in semi-structured individual face to face interviews. In addition, home observations were used to gather data.

Descriptive analysis seems to suggest that teachers appear to down play the potential of parents with low formal education in contributing to their children’s mathematics learning. However, these parents with low formal education were able to describe ways they engage their children (8-9 years) in mathematics at home through informal activities, interactions, and games. Most importantly, it was featured prominently that participation through mentorship and engagement in local business transactions is used as learning as well as an evaluation context for one’s mathematics competence. Parents irrespective of their low or no formal education seems to value the social justice aspect a “good mathematics” can have. Thus, “Giving and receiving correct change” is perceived a key determinant or characteristic of one’s moral standing in ensuring fairness to others as well as a promise of future success in mathematics and education in general.

Implication for Practice

This study reports several examples of the informal activities, conversations, and games in which parents from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds, who are neither mathematics educators nor literates, engage their young children (8-9 years), the study rekindles the conversation on the crucial role parents may/do still play in enhancing their children’s mathematics learning at home, irrespective of parents’ formal mathematics competencies.

Myron Medina presents his interests for his doctoral research :

My current research interest looks at how Belizean cultural artifacts (coral carvings, Mayan paintings, music etc.) can be used as mediums to embody and visualize certain mathematical patterns (e.g. symmetry, fractals). A forest school will be opening at Caye Caulker, an ecological island off the coast of Belize, that will experiment with outdoor/ecological learning. Since mathematics education in Belize is often teaching to the test, this presents an opportunity to incorporate the notion of embodied knowledge via local cultural practices within the mathematics curriculum. Since it is important to engage the senses in learning, some broad questions are: In what ways can these resources be used to teach and learn math? What would students take away from these experiences?

Terms: embodiment, visualization, ethnomathematics, cultural ecology

SyMETRI is a research group for all those interested in exploring, questioning, inquiring into, and doing mathematics and science education research. As a research group we meet regularly to share research projects, dissertation and thesis research, academic and professional presentations, teaching ideas and projects, and work on mathematics and science together.