Development of awareness of tolerance and mathematical reasoning skills through action research in multicultural mathematics education

Abstract

Globalization, increased ease of transportation, and conflicts in different regions have led to multicultural interactions among diverse communities. However, there is a lack of research on tolerance awareness in multicultural mathematics education. This study implemented action research to develop middle school students’ awareness of tolerance and their mathematical reasoning skills in multicultural mathematics education. Researchers involved twenty-three sixth-grade students in this research. Data collection included quantitative and qualitative methods. Researchers conducted three cycles and used six action research plans in the study. The researchers used content analysis to analyze the data. The results indicated that, before the action research, students had a low awareness of tolerance development and had limited mathematical reasoning skills. However, after the action research, we found remarkable improvements regarding awareness of the development of tolerance and mathematical reasoning skills in a multicultural mathematics education context. Based on these findings, recommendations for implementing multicultural mathematics education are formulated to overcome the difficulties and challenges teachers and students experience when applying action research methods in further studies.