ELECHI AMADI’S “THE CONCUBINE”: ETHNOMATHEMATICS RESOURCE FOR TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN IKWERRE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

The study is based on the content analysis of Elechi Amadi’s book, “the Concubine”; the book captures the cultural elements and worldview of the Ikwerre people in the upland part of Rivers state of Nigeria. This research was a quasi experimental study to appraise the existence of mathematical ideas in “The Concubine ” set in Ikwerre culture and to determine the effect of using these ideas in teaching some mathematics topics to Ikwerre primary school pupils. A content analysis of the text confirmed the existence of mathematical ideas in the book. Forty primary two Ikwerre pupils (making the experimental group) were taught some mathematics topics using ethnomathematics ideas as exposed in the novel and forty (the control group) were taught the same topics using the conventional methods. The two groups were given a pre- test and post- test using an achievement test as an instrument constructed by the researcher. The result of the achievement test was analyzed to determine whether there was any significant difference in the performance of pupils in the two groups. The result shows that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups. This difference was in favour of the experimental group