Ubiratàn D'Ambrosio

Ubiratan D'Ambrosio (December 8, 1932 – May 12, 2021) was a Brazilian mathematics educator and historian of mathematics. He is most well known for being the originator of the term Ethnomathematics, and his efforts to promote mathematics education in his home country.

Life

D'Ambrosio was born in São Paulo, and earned his doctorate from the University of São Paulo in 1963. In 1964, he took a post-doctoral position at Brown University, intending to stay for one year, but was forced to stay in the United States due to the military coup in Brazil. before returning to Brazil in 1972 where he took a position directing the department of mathematics, statistics and scientific computing at the State University of Campinas in São Paulo. He also served as a visiting professor at the graduate program at the Center Pédagogique Supérieur in Bamako, Mali.

Ethnomathematics D'Ambriosio is most well known for popularizing the field of study of Ethnomathematics. While Ethnomathematics has been defined many ways by different people, D'Ambrosio defined it as a study of mathematics related to members of distinct cultural groups groups,including indigenous people, workers and even children. Some of D'Ambrosio's early studies of ethnomathematics included research on the mathematics done by residents of favelas in Campinas, in the Brazilian state of São Paolo. These studies were led by students of Paulo Freire, who incorporated Freire's educational ideas.

Writings

Books 1996, Educação Matemática: da teoria à prática.

Book chapters 1997, Ethno Mathematics. Challenging Eurocentrism, in Arthur B. Powell, Marilyn Frankenstein (eds.) Mathematics Education, State University of New York Press, Albany 1997, p. 13–24. Historiographical Proposal for Non-Western Mathematics, in Helaine Selin (ed.), Mathematics Across Cultures. The History of Non-Western Mathematics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2000, pp. 79–92.

Articles A Busca da paz como responsabilidade dos matemáticos. Cuadernos de Investigación y Formación en Educación Matemática 7 (2011) A Etnomatemática no processo de construção de uma escola indígena . Em aberto 63 (1994)