Developing Human Rights Values in Mathematics Teacher Education: Education with and by Youth (ViMTE)

The United Nations SDGs (2021) call for actions to address global human and non-human challenges, peace and justice. Founded on this call for action, Udir (2020) calls for the interdisciplinary Values of ethical awareness, human dignity, and democratic participation to be included in all school subjects.

The ViMTE project will research the deliberate and explicit incorporation of human rights values in Norwegian mathematics teacher education programmes and hence in the practices of future school mathematics teachers.

The explicit incorporation of values (specifically: ethical awareness, human dignity and democratic participation) is a requirement of the Norwegian curriculum (Udir, 2020). These values have not previously been addressed in mathematics teacher education programmes in Norway.

ViMTE main objective is to develop new insights to strengthen the competencies of youth, teacher educators and pre-service teachers to incorporate these values in mathematics teaching and learning. Achieving this objective will involve theoretical and methodological innovation drawing on concepts from mathematics education and human rights education.

In a participatory research approach, we will invite youth in grades 5-10 to collaborate with researchers, teacher educators and pre-service teachers in two universities to understand how existing practices support and hinder the incorporation of the Values in mathematics teacher education programmes and to develop new practices.

Within a broader social agenda, ViMTE will highlight the interplay between the learning of mathematics and the overarching Values-based knowledge that transcends subject boundaries and is necessary to contribute to a more socially sustainable society and working life.