1. Culture, Worldview and Transformative Philosophy of Mathematics Teacher Education in Nepal: A Cultural-Philosophical Inquiry
Bal Chandra Luitel

2. Framing my research
Who?
What?
How?
Why?

3. Who? A teacher educator from Nepal
Works in a newly established university
Have been involved in designing mathematics teacher education programs
Has written and published about 6 papers on the basis of Masters degree project
These papers talk mostly about the contextualisation of mathematics education in Nepal

4. Who?
Has taught some 2/3 years in schools and then educating teachers since the middle of 1998
Am involved in an ethnomathematics project funded by UNESCO
Co-supervised one MPhil dissertation entitled My Journey of Learning and Teaching Mathematics from Traditionalism to Constructivism: A Portrayal of Pedagogic Metamorphosis
Supervised about 20 action research projects of local teachers…
Conducted about 12 workshops on mathematics teaching
Conducted about 5 workshops on qualitative research

5. Who?
A professional teacher educator grappling to make sense of his professional contexts..
Have interests in philosophical discourses of East (and West)
Have some ideas about Sanskrit literature and language
Have some awareness of Madhyamika—Middle Path, Advaita Vedanta—Nondual Vendanta

6. What?
I intend to review the existing philosophies that have guided mathematics teacher education programs in Nepal. My aim is to reflect on my lived reality, associated documents and field experiences that I propose to undertake.
I wish to explore the similarities and contradistinctions between the Nepali cosmology and the Western Mathematical Worldview. In so doing, I shall explore more of the epistemological and ontological nature of Western Mathematical and Nepali Worldviews.
I plan to develop an alternative philosophy of mathematics teacher education that helps me in designing and implementing teacher education programs as well as acting within its context.

7. What?
Which philosophies have been governing the existing Mathematics Teacher Education programs in Nepal?
In what ways are the Western Mathematical Worldview and Nepali Worldview similar and different in terms of their epistemologies and ontologies?
In what ways can nondual traditions of the East (Vedanta and Buddhism) contribute to the development of an alternative philosophy of mathematics teacher education in Nepal?
What are alternative ways of knowing mathematics in my cultural context?
How can mathematical knowledge for teacher education in Nepal be made holistic, ecologically balanced and discursive?
What can a transformative philosophy of mathematics teacher education be for Nepal?

8. How? Research Method: qualitative, interpretive
Auto/ethnographic inquiry: looking for an holistic understanding of the world of inquiry
Writing as inquiry
Philosophy as discourse and action: Focusing on the ‘Why’ question…
Emergent, diachronic and ‘no-method’ approach

9. How? Referents Dialectical thinking Post/critical philosophy
Non/dualism
Ecological holism
Radical and critical constructivism
Geometry theory model
Social constructivism
Ethnomathematics …

10. How?
Quality Standards
Triple Crisis: crises of representation, legitimacy and praxis
Other standards (based on my referents)
‘No-standards’: Developing thru the process of inquiry

11. How ? Referents Rigour Criteria Radical Constructivism
Cultural viability/verisimilitude of texts
Multiplicity of my experience
Critical constructivism
Emancipatory dimension of my texts
Self-reflexivity
Post/criticalism
Emancipation
Making person and culture visible in the texts
Clarity of researcher’s beliefs, assumptions
Non/dual, Integral Philosophy, Dialectical Thinking,
Holistic understanding
Developing Wisdom
Writing-as-inquiry
Substantive contribution
Aesthetic Merit and verisimilitude
Reflexivity
Impact on potential readers

12. Why? My ‘inquiry self’ and ‘professional self’
The major significance of this type of inquiry is: ‘to make sense of what we were doing both as living our stories in the ongoing experiential text and as telling our stories in words we reflected on life and explained ourselves to others (Clandinin, 1993, p.1).

13. Why? My inquiry and other Nepali teacher educators
other teacher educators can start envisioning similar agenda for their field of inquiry.
my inquiry can encourage them to look into their own cultural capital in order make mathematics teacher education meaningful, inclusive and justifiable.
my research can generate praxis, pedagogical thoughtfulness and wakefulness, through my inquiry ‘product’ and texts.

14. Why? Contribution to the field of Mathematics Education
I do not believe that my philosophy will be the philosophy; instead I intend it to be a philosophy developed in a particular cross-section of space, time and self.
I am hoping that my inquiry will be able to excavate further the cultural nature of mathematics, but certainly to/for Nepali contexts.
My inquiry and other researchers
(Data)texts ‘are always open to diverse interpretations’ (Kincheloe, 2003, p. 198) in my research
Research approach in relation to different referents