The Impact of Culturally Responsive Teaching on Statistical and Probabilistic Learning of Elementary Children

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to explore the impact of culturally responsive teaching on statistical and probabilistic learning of elementary children. In this study, the learning of mathematics and statistics is centred on solving problems with themes derived from the children's culture and the context in which they live. We also aim to understand and describe indicators of the development of different forms of combinatorial, probabilistic and statistical reasoning that young children acquire throughout their second and third year of schooling. The data presented in this chapter emerged during a longitudinal research exploring the temporal dimension of experience. The methodology chosen generates rich detail and allows for the segmentation of data, while focusing on the act of listening to those who are willing to express their reasoning. This enables the researcher to discern human action and take into account the social practices, the subjective experiences, identity, beliefs, emotions, values, contexts and complexity of the participants. The results of the research include the description of the thought processes that emerge as children engage in using mathematics and statistics during their second and third year of elementary school showing that children need to experience problematizing activities involving diverse situations for development of probabilistic and statistical reasoning.