African Mathematics

From Bones to Computers

By (author) Abdul Karim Bangura

Publication date:

30 December 2011

Length of book:

236 pages

Publisher

UPA

ISBN-13: 9780761853480

This is the first comprehensive text on African Mathematics that can be used to address some of the problematic issues in this area. These issues include attitudes, curriculum development, educational change, academic achievement, standardized and other tests, performance factors, student characteristics, cross-cultural differences and studies, literacy, native speakers, social class and differences, equal education, teaching methods, knowledge level, educational guidelines and policies, transitional schools, comparative education, other subjects such as physics and social studies, surveys, talent, educational research, teacher education and qualifications, academic standards, teacher effectiveness, lesson plans and modules, teacher characteristics, instructional materials, program effectiveness, program evaluation, African culture, African history, Black studies, class activities, educational games, number systems, cognitive ability, foreign influence, and fundamental concepts. What unifies the chapters in this book can appear rather banal, but many mathematical insights are so obvious and so fundamental that they are difficult to absorb, appreciate, and express with fresh clarity. Some of the more basic insights are isolated by accounts of investigators who have earned their contemporaries' respect.

Winner of the 2012 Cecil B. Currey Book Award.

Chapter 1: General Introduction
Chapter 2: Beginnings: Mathematics of Bones
Chapter 3: Geometry South of the Sahara
Chapter 4: Numbers
Chapter 5: Beginning of Written Mathematics: Egypt
Chapter 6: The Maghrebian Tradition
Chapter 7: Combinatorics and African Applications
Chapter 8: Vector Calculus and African Applications
Chapter 9: The Fourier Transform and African Applications
Chapter 10: Mathematical Tiling/Tesselation and African Applications
Chapter 11: Bifurcations and African Applications
Chapter 12: Fractals
Chapter 13: African-centered Automated Generation of Metadata
Chapter 14: General Conclusion: Access to Mathematics versus Access to the Language of Power: Lessons from the Struggle in South African Multilingual Mathematics Classrooms
Chapter 15 Bibliography

In African Mathematics, Abdul Karim Bangura attempts to utilize historical and contemporary sources to highlight Africa’s contribution to certain branches and sub-branches of mathematics and furthermore to explore the possibilities of research and teaching of mathematics from an African centered platform. . . . African Mathematics holds the promise of acting as a catalyst for indigenous knowledge-based exploration in all fields of study where African researchers can be found.