Implementations of Big Data analysis are reshaping society. The novel ways mathematics operate in society warrants new efforts for mathematics education, both in teaching the new technology and in providing an ethical and critical awareness of its implications. This interview study investigates pre-service teachers' ethical reasoning in data science contexts, focusing on aspects of access to the data that underpin the technology. Findings show that pre-service teachers offer a wide array of ethical arguments related to access to data, that informs their effort to think critically on oppressive situations. However, there is also an indication that their reasoning can be limited by lacking understanding of the related data science methodology, implying that mathematics teacher education should encompass more of this.
The prevalence of Big Data Analytics as a proxy for human decision-makingprocesses in globalized society, has catalyzed a call for the modernization ofthe mathematics curriculum to promote data literacy and ethical reasoning. Tosupport this initiative, ten preservice mathematics teachers (PSTs) in Sweden(SWE) and the United States (US) were interviewed to identify what ethicalconsiderations preservice teachers (PSTs) make in their mathematicalanalyses of data science contexts. Preliminary results indicate that teachersmake a myriad of ethical considerations in their mathematical work that aretied to their critical mathematics consciousness (CMC), conceptions of dataliteracy, and experiences. As a result, it is imperative that educatorssimultaneously design educational curricula to foster students’ CMC and workto transform teacher held definitions of data literacy to reflect changes broughton by globalization.
The use of people’s online digital traces has given rise to concerns for democracy. The digital traces may affect the individual’s life in unexpected and negative ways. Such traces may also be of importance for understanding the spread of disinformation and the like. This paper reports on a Foucault inspired discourse analysis of the Swedish upper secondary mathematics curriculum. Two discourses are construed in the intersection of critical thinking, democracy, and this new technology. Skovsmose’s concept of mathemacy is used to identify what is critical knowledge and what is not. The first construed discourse is, “With knowledge in formal mathematics, critical thinking on democracy will follow.” The second is, “Rather a personal career than a critical citizenship.” Neither of the discourses promotes a need for mathematics education to change due to new technology with regards to critical thinking.
An increasing concern have been expressed in both academic and public debate that new digital technology might undermine democratic values and practices. This paper explores how studies in the field of Mathematics Education could present different answers to ramifications of new digital phenomena for both individuals and society. A transdisciplinary approach under a post structural theoretical framework is suggested, and two tentative studies are presented. One study will carry out a critical text analysis of Swedish educational steering documents and one will be a classroom action research study, where discourses will be analysed.