This study examines the effects of increasing trade openness on Pakistan’s economic growth. A four variable macro model based on the textbook type familiar aggregate demand – aggregate supply framework is specified. And a simple ordinary least square (OLS) technique is used for the estimation. For Pakistan, shocks to trade openness have negative (but insignificant) effects on output growth. The significance of the results depends on the specification of the model, sample size and the length of the data period. The results seem to be consistent with the findings of some empirical studies in which a country may suffer a loss due to increase openness of an economy.

Throughout history, storytelling has been used as a way to appeal to people’s imagination and emotions. When stories are told in the mathematics classroom, the subject comes to life. Students begin to understand the purpose of learning the content, and mathematics becomes something greater than a plethora of irrelevant facts and formulas that are meant to be memorized, applied, and repeated. This workshop focuses on the use of storytelling as a way to engage students in a nontraditional and pertinent form of learning mathematics. In this session, participants will listen to stories used with predominantly Arab students in an American university in Qatar and partake in doing mathematical tasks related to the stories presented. Although the stories in this workshop were applied in an Arab context, the ideas can be edited for use in any cultural context.

The authors of this chapter propose that the decolonization of Western course content and teaching practice is one of the necessary next steps to build a more equitable and inclusive mathematics curriculum in Qatar. Decolonization of curriculum and pedagogy involves a multilayered process including recognition of constraints placed upon curriculum and pedagogy, a disruption of these constraints, and a creation of alternatives. In this chapter, the authors outline three areas of concern: non-Eurocentric representation, single ways of learning, and elitism in mathematics; and offers pedagogical strategies as a roadmap forward towards decolonization of mathematics curriculum. This is followed by a description of a series of workshops designed for and held with teachers in the community. Finally, the authors present data about teacher perceptions of adopting culturally relevant storytelling as a tool for math education when combined with best practices in mathematics pedagogy.

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