Intercultural kindergarten mathematics: Building kindergarten mathematical competency through engagement with immigrant families

Project summary

The project is designed to develop the competence of kindergarten teachers in Fjell Municipality and teacher educators at Bergen University College (BUC) in regard to developing kindergarten children´s curiosity about mathematics through intercultural communication with immigrant families. In order to do this, the project will involve immigrant parents and kindergarten teachers documenting and sharing their understandings about mathematics. A professional development programme will be developed from these findings and refined over the two years it will run. This PD will be evaluated in regard to the teachers´ designing and implementing culturally-responsive mathematics by analysing the documentation that the teachers make around children´s engagement. Interviews with teachers during the process of designing and implementing learning opportunities to support children´s mathematical curiosity will also be analysed to identify what supports and hinders teachers making changes to their practices. The comprehensive analysis of this project will strengthen the kindergarten teachers´ competence in this area and strengthen research capacity of BUC teacher educators many of whom are early career researchers. The international advisory board and collaborators for this project will contribute to the mentoring of these early career researchers through providing of advice and possibilities for co-authored papers.