We investigate how epistemic injustice can manifest itself in mathematical practices. We do this as both a social epistemological and virtue-theoretic investigation of mathematical practices. We delineate the concept both positivelywe show that a certain type of folk theorem can be a source of epistemic injustice in mathematicsand negatively by exploring cases where the obstacles to participation in a mathematical practice do not amount to epistemic injustice. Having explored what epistemic injustice in mathematics can amount to, we use the concept to highlight a potential danger of intellectual enculturation.
Equity and ethics in the learning of mathematics is a major topic for mathematics education research. The study of ethics and injustice in relation to epistemic pursuits, such as mathematics, is receiving a great deal of interest within contemporary philosophy. We propose a bridging project between these two disciplines, importing key ideas of "epistemic injustice" and "ethical orders" from philosophy into mathematics education to address questions of ethics, equity, values and norms. We build on Dawkins and Weber's (Educ Stud Math 95:123-142, 2017) "apprenticeship model" of learning proofs and proving, which says that mathematics education should reflect the practices of research mathematicians. Focusing on the norms and values implicit in mathematical proving, we argue that deploying this model unreflectively can lead to "epistemic injustices" in which learners are disadvantaged based on their cultural or class background. We propose thinking about the problem in terms of Max Weber's "ethical orders", and the clash that arises between the ethical orders of mathematics and the existing ethical orders of the learners and teachers of mathematics. Weber's lesson is that sometimes these clashes have no overarching resolution, and so the mathematics classroom may also have to settle for tailored pragmatic measures to combat individual cases of epistemic injustice.
The literature on mathema.cal explana.on contains numerous examples of explanatory, and not so explanatory proofs. In this paper we report results of an empirical study aimed at inves.ga.ng mathema.cians' no.on of explanatoriness, and its rela.onship to accounts of mathema.cal explana.on. Using a Compara.ve Judgement approach, we asked 38 mathema.cians to assess the explanatory value of several proofs of the same proposi.on. We found an extremely high level of agreement among mathema.cians, and some inconsistencies between their assessments and claims in the literature regarding the explanatoriness of certain types of proofs.
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