Communitarian education and mathematics learning: A way of value diversity

Abstract

In our society there is high diversity so we need educational methodologies that promote equal opportunities for personal success inside the difference. It is necessary to explore the role of non-formal educational practices in multicultural contexts and to implement a model of communitarian education that allows the practices of other cultures to become valued by and visible to the broader society. Nowadays there are not doubts about the importance of the developing of number sense in the early mathematics learning, however, the entrance to the scholar arithmetic is, in most cases, through the teaching of the four rules using the traditional algorithms. Here we show how to use open calculations based on numbers (ABN) as an inclusive methodological alternative, based on the meaningful learning of the decimal system, the operations and their properties. We think the method fits very well with people from other ethnics as Romanian people.