Mathematics Education Researchers (MER) community
Special Issue in Philosophy of Mathematics Education
Proposal Title - Mathematics Education as Witness: Co-authoring Against Genocide with the Silenced Youth and Teachers
In this Special Issue, we propose to use mathematics and its teaching and learning to reflect on and highlight both overt and silenced forms of genocide. Overt genocide such as what is happening in Palestine and Sudan. Silenced genocide such as systematic but silence killing of girls and women in Iran, or in indigenous communities in many places in the world.
This issue is grounded in the principles of speaking up, honoring victims, and learning from the past. We aim to understand what is in our capacity and what we can do as a mathematics education community, so that "never again" becomes more than just a slogan.
In different clusters of this SI we aim to focus on three central themes:
The past for the present
Speak up - Speaking about it confronts lies, erasure, and ideological manipulation.
Creating space to share historical knowledge and global solidarity.
The present for the future
No denial no silence - we aim to give voice, to mathematics education researchers, mathematics teachers and the youth to affirms the humanity of all and healing.
Raising Awareness – to shed light on dehumanization and to build empathy, critical thinking, and vigilance.
how things such as hate speech, propaganda, feeds into genocide.
systems of power—colonialism, racism, nationalism. Discussing them means holding power to account. It's about justice, not just history. To Confront Injustice and Power
Role of Bystanders - Communities Response or Failure
Who enabled the violence by staying silent? Who resisted? These stories matter too.
How did the world react? What were the failures of the UN, global powers?
Reflects on accountability and geopolitics.
We propose novel approaches to co-authorship for each paper—going beyond traditional academic formulations of thought. Specifically, we encourage researchers to collaborate with two groups whore are currently experiencing both overt and silenced forms of genocide: mathematics learners (youth) and mathematics teachers. We specifically are interested in collaboration with the youth as they are the futures.
We accept contributions from different languages. The contributions will be published alongside its English translation.
Guest editors: Yasmine Abtahi, Jehad Alshwaikh, Renato Marcone, Aldo Parra , Richard Barwell, Anita Rampal
Interested in collaborating? Contact Yasmine Abtahi Yasmine...@usn.no
Timeline:
- Abstracts June 15, 2025
- Submit the first full paper August 30 (Max 5000)
- First review Oct 30 – open review
- Revisions Dec 15