Abstract
The introduction of this paper sets the stage to explore mathematics education’s ethical relation with climate change. In doing so, it explicates the manner mathematics education could respond to climate change. It sets before itself the following question: what role should mathematics education assume, in relating with and responding to the ecological and social challenges of climate change? To answer this question we provide a brief historic overview of mathematics education and the social purposes it has served culminating in a critique of neoliberalism. The critique exposes mathematics education’s skewed orientation toward economic interest over and above its ethical relation with the planet, e.g., climate change. Given the enormity and severity of climate change, we argue mathematics education must move beyond a preoccupation with economics to one founded by virtue ethics. Specifically, an Ethic of Care embodies mathematics education’s relation with climate change. The contribution of complexity theory, a descendant of chaos theory and systems theory, as it complements an Ethic of Care, is further explored. In the final section, we survey epistemological, pedagogical, learning, and curricular examples of mathematics education’s response to climate change. Finally, a Summary provides an overview of the paper and suggestions for mathematics educators to extend our exploratory work here.
