History of Mathematics in Korean Mathematics Textbooks: Implication for Using Ethnomathematics in Culturally Diverse School

From a multicultural perspective, this research investigated to what extent Korean mathematics textbooks use history of mathematics. The results show even though educational use of history presented in Korean mathematics textbooks may provide a rich outlook, it does not encourage a fundamental change in the educational practice of school mathematics that has traditionally been entrenched in the Eurocentric narrative of mathematics. This suggests that the mathematics textbooks were not organized effectively to promote students’ understanding of diversity. Based on the results, we discuss the implications for the development of mathematics textbook from multicultural perspectives.