This paper tells an overarching story emerging from an inquiry into the affordances and constraints of using global citizenship (GC) themes in secondary mathematics classrooms in Scotland. I argue that not only does mathematics, as a human tool for measuring modelling and making sense of the world, have something distinctive to offer GC education but also that GC opens spaces to rethink and potentially rewild mathematics education. The project has roots in ‘global citizenship education otherwise’ (Andreotti 2021) and critical mathematics education for social justice (Skovsmose 2014, Weist et al 2007, Stinson et al 2012). It is pragmatically connected to the current requirements of the Scottish ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (Scottish executive 2004) where Global citizenship education is an entitlement for all learners and the responsibility of all teachers.  

The secondary mathematics teachers in this project have chosen to attend subject specific professional learning courses offered by a development education centre. They engaged with GC themes and classroom materials that contextualise mathematics tasks in complex and sometimes controversial topics. Some of the teachers were able to then use these materials in their classrooms. 

Two sub plots identified in the research project are drawn on here. The first describes the power and tenacity of what I have called ‘business as usual mathematics education’ where the overriding purpose is to meet performance targets in the achievement of tradeable qualifications. The second describes teachers finding and giving space, both of which require professional and pedagogic courage, in which they teach about, through and for GC.  

I privilege possibility over probability to suggest that global citizenship education can help to rewild the damaged and denuded site that is the typical mathematics classroom (Ernest 2020) where mathematics is the “handmaiden of capital” (Darder 2018 pviii).  GC materials (see e.g. Scotdec 2021) which echo the “spiritual turn” (Gutierrez) and the “socio-ecological ecological” turn (Coles 2022) that have been called for in mathematics education, require dispositions and pedagogies that may be unfamiliar to, but also welcomed by mathematics teachers.   

Following their meta review of typologies of GCE Pashby et al (2020 p.158) “identify three different layers of analysis and intervention … methodological (the level of doing), epistemological (the level of thinking) and ontological the level of being.” Each of these maps to this story and I add a fourth axiological the level of valuing.   When the teachers adapt their pedagogy to give choice or enable collaboration they are engaging methodologically. When the teachers reimagine the curriculum to embrace wider purposes that better match the use and beauty of mathematics they are engaging epistemologically. When the teachers carve out spaces within which pedagogy and curriculum can be enacted differently, they are engaging ontologically. When the teachers respect young people  as more than Homus O Economicus (Valero 2018) in the making, care about their foregrounds (Skovsmose 2012) and mind about our shared world (Griffiths & Murray 2017) they are engaging axiologically.  

A recovered ecosystem is not a virgin one and it is important to manage our expectations of the mathematics classroom. The social environment of individual competitive capitalism, austerity policies and powerful social media places pressure to adapt on teachers and young people. The education policy environment in Scotland seems to be very encouraging for the teacher who is committed to social justice and yet in practice the requirement to raise attainment always dominates the requirement to embed learning for Sustainability (Scottish Government 1012). This project has given some glimpses that suggest that GC in mathematics can have the strength of a plant growing up through concrete and making a crack in what seemed to be impenetrable.   

Since autumn 2018 I have engaged with secondary mathematics teachers in GC workshops, webinars and online modules. The material collated includes online postings, which helped to craft themes for recorded conversations with teachers, and my own journal notes. Through an iterative process of writing back into the conversation transcripts using my journal notes I have gone visiting (Arendt 1992) to explore the ways in which these teachers make sense of the affordances and constraints of their contexts. I have been guided by feminist methodology which warns against treating people as “data objects” (Stanley & Wise 2002) and has often called me “down from the attic” (Smith 1992) for some reflexive exercises to connect the lengthening string of methodological qualifiers; critical, feminist, decolonial, post critical with the activities I am undertaking. Mignolo (2011) argues that decolonisation entails the reversal of the colonial logic which translates differences into values. I have been determined not to repeat the sorting and labelling that happens in mathematics classrooms and make no attempt to categorise the teachers but rather to “form an opinion by considering a given issue from different viewpoints” (Arendt 1961 p.237). I have set out to understand something of where these Scottish mathematics teachers stand. This includes their school settings, the policy landscape, their relationship to mathematics and their conceptions of themselves as teachers of global citizenship within mathematics. My understanding of thinking with theory is a composting of ideas which was suggested by Andreotti et al (2018 p.10-11) in the context of dealing with the “waste” from a “modern/colonial imaginary”. The breaking down processes might describe unlearning as well as releasing key ideas from their previous constructs so they may recombine in new ways. It is an organic metaphor with a certain relinquishing of human power and control (Haraway 2015) unlike the image of dismantling a building (Stein et al 2017) in order to rebuild from the constituent parts. Compost is made to be used and the characterisation of research as providing “input to social dialogue and praxis in society” (Flyvbjerg 2001 p. 139) echoes both Dewey’s pragmatism and Arendt’s emphasis on politics as discursive action. I have worked with the development education centre throughout this project, incorporating emerging themes back into professional learning and encouraging the teachers to share their stories and establish an online supportive community.

The teachers in this study know that ‘business as usual mathematics education’ has damaging consequences during what is called the senior phase [age 15-17] when young people write public examinations. They described this as “a two year parenthesis” where meaningful mathematics is “in a box” and “you have to close windows.” They also acknowledge there is a ‘backwash’ of ‘teaching to the test’ that floods the first three years of secondary school (see also Teese 2007). This focus on a narrowly conceived progress (Povey and Angier 2021) is encouraged by the inspectorate in the guise of tackling inequality. These teachers were able to articulate the tensions they have to reconcile: “If we do not embrace these topics with our young people, we are doing them a disservice, we will not equip them with the essential skills and tools to become the critical citizens they will require to be in their futures.” [teacher B] and three of the teachers attributed talking about GC in job interviews as contributing to their success. They wanted to engage in professional learning but were often frustrated by other demands: “I need to do more. I am so frustrated I have not picked up so many of the things I learned from you in my previous training I’ve just not been doing it. It just makes me very upset I think today ... how I could have used that time for planning all the things I could do instead of planning assessments.” [Teacher B] When GC tasks were used, they opened up the classroom to different voices, challenged the hierarchy of prior attainment and enabled young people to make authentic connections with their experiences.

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