Unity in Differences: Reflections on the Doing of Ethnomodelling and Dialogue Through Connecting Ethnomathematics and Modelling

Abstract

This paper is based on research in ethnomodelling that was conducted by Cortes in a state public school and a local farmers’ market in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, in 2017. The main objective of the original study was to identify how the dialogic approach of ethnomodelling could contribute to processes of re-signification of function concepts learned by 38 students in the second year of high school during their interaction with a local farmer and his labor practices. In this chapter, we reflect on the connections related to our ongoing research in ethnomodelling. In a previous paper, we discussed the basics and shared the final results of Cortes’s work. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss what was learned since the last publication, and to reflect on feedback and new ideas related to the dialogical process itself that allows us to use and create new forms of emic, etic, and dialogical aspects in ethnomodelling. Also, we seek here integrate and to share ideas related to ethnomodelling dialogue gleaned from discussions and work with the ethnomathematics research group in Nepal. We end this chapter with a concrete example of how we can apply dialogue and ethnomodelling in the context of Cortes’ work with a farmer seller and his students in public high school in Brazil.