This book defends that math education should systematically start out from the diverse out-of-school knowledge of children and develop trajectories from there to the Academic Mathematics   tower of knowledge. Learning theories of the sociocultural school (Vygotsky and on) are used here, and ethnographic knowledge from around the world is shown to offer a rich and varied base for curricula. The book takes a political stand against the exclusively western focus  in OECD analyses and proposals on math education. 
This book aims
at agents in education and social actions in every cultural environment. But it
is also attractive to mathematicians, anthropologists and other specialists. It
offers a broad and scholarly view of knowledge and culture and a very
original  transcultural and transdisciplinarian approach to education.



Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, UNICAMP/Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil