Mathematics

This guide focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and mathematics conventions since colonisation. However, mathematics has been an important part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for thousands of years, and still is today. 

This guide talks about the distinct subject or learning area of Mathematics. But traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mathematics connects with other subject and learning areas, such as:

• Languages
• Science
• Technologies, 
• Humanities
• Social Sciences 
• Geography. 

In Michael Cook’s Seeing Yolnu, Seeing Mathematics (1990), he says ‘removing words, concepts and structures from their Aboriginal context and putting them into a European box called mathematics’ loses much of the full significance of their meaning. It does not do ‘justice to the intricacy and complexity’ of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contexts and cultures they’re tied to.

Maths is often thought of as a simple ‘objective’ subject area. One that has little connection to people and their world views or experiences. 

However, it is a:

• social construct – involving abstract, natural patterns and symbolic expressions of relationships 
• cultural practice, and the symbols and language of mathematics itself are cultural products.

The paper Numeracy, mathematics and Indigenous learners: Not the same old thing (2011) talks more about this.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, maths is not always about quantities or numbers. Instead, it focuses on relationships of all kinds. It includes relationships between the range of elements of the known physical and socio-cultural environment.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance (ATSIMA) has resources on links between traditional kinship and maths. For example, using rotation and symmetry in diagrams representing Central and Western Desert kinship systems express the connections between culture, relationships, and maths.

Also, culturally distinct geometric symbols in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artworks sometimes use maths as storytelling. They show the natural landscape and the Dreaming stories tied to them. 
It is important to appreciate traditional and continuing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts and conventions relating to maths, and the social, cultural, linguistic, scientific and geographic spheres it intersects with.

These are some of the key dates in recent history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander maths, including events that bring maths and reconciliation together. 

60,000+ years ago:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia maintain maths conventions and concepts that date back tens of thousands of years.  

1909:

• Based on mathematical and scientific understandings, David Unaipon designs and patents an enhanced hand piece for shearing sheep.

1967:

• The Australian Government holds the momentous 1967 Referendum on 27 May to count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Census. It seeks to also count their votes in state and federal elections. More than 90% of Australian voters choose ‘Yes’. This event is significant to maths and reconciliation. It’s not so much about counting (traditional enumeration systems), but about improving how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are counted.

2008:

• Reconciliation Australia carries out and releases its first biennial Australian Reconciliation Barometer survey. The Barometer uses maths to quantify data and provide statistics and analysis on the attitudes of non-Indigenous and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and progress towards reconciliation.

2009:

• The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT) begins managing the Make it Count project. The project supports eight clusters of schools in regional and urban Australia to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ maths outcomes.

2011:

• Reconciliation Australia releases its first annual Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Impact Measurement Report. The report uses mathematics to quantify data and provide statistics on the workplace Reconciliation Action Plan program results since beginning in 2006.

2012:

• The AAMT convenes the Numeracy, Mathematics and Indigenous Learners national conference. It brings together educators to showcase their learnings and teachings. The conference generates a blueprint for teaching mathematics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners. This prompts a series of more events around the country. 

2014:

• With the support of the BHP Billiton Foundation, the CSIRO launches its Indigenous STEM Education Project. The project aims to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student participation and achievements in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
• The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance (ATSIMA) is established. 

2015:

• The ATSIMA deadly task force meets for the first time on 10 April. It follows support to develop an alliance focused on improving opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mathematics students that could connect mathematics-related industry and business to educators.

2016:

• The CSIRO launches the Indigenous STEM Awards, which includes a specific Student Maths Achievement Award.

2017:

• Dr Chris Matthews receives the inaugural Indigenous STEM Professional Award for innovative work engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Science and Mathematics.