The multicultural nature of modern
society constitutes one of the most significant changes to have
influenced schools in many European countries. In many EU member
states, a high percentage of students are migrants (first or second
generation). The current influx of refugees and asylum seekers will
most likely lead to an increase in this percentage, and the
multicultural classroom - already a reality in many schools - will
become the norm. While most member states have - after some struggle -
succeeded to issue educational policies dealing with this situation,
and suitable learning materials for languages and social sciences have
recently been developed, the learning materials that teachers have
available to teach mathematics in multicultural classrooms lag far
behind, as do the learning outcomes. The teacher’s job is all
the more difficult because he/she is usually not sufficiently prepared
to deal with the new classroom context with pupils having a migrant
background, coming from countries with different cultures and different
languages, as these topics are not often covered in pre- and in-service
teacher education.
It is therefore the objective of this project to:
- develop, test and disseminate ICT-based teaching and learning
materials ("learning software") for teaching mathematics in
multicultural and multilingual classrooms, with a particular focus on
migrant students
- provide pre- and in-service-teacher training activities
("professional development"), presenting and using the learning
software.