The Development of Mathematics Education Based on Ethnomathematics (2) : Analysis of Universal Activities in terms of Verbs

In the development of a new curriculum whose focus is mathematical activity as signified, the verb as its signifier should be a center of consideration. This is why the proposed curriculum is named verb-based. In mathematics education, an activity deepens itself in a recursive manner through symbolization of activity. Bishop (1991) has widened this concept of activity and claimed that each culture has developed its own mathematics through six universal activities. The verb-based curriculum intends to make use of these cultural activities. The overall theme of the series of researches concerns the international cooperation in mathematics education especially with Kenya as a leading country on the African continent. In the development of the verb-based curriculum, the authors have this concern, with resonance of mathematics educators such as D'Ambrosio (1985), Gerdes (1990), Nebres (1988) in the developing countries, who have proposed cultural perspectives of mathematics education. And the target of this paper was the analysis of the Japanese course of study at the primary level, and the verbs in it were collected and analyzed. As a result, it has shown the structure of mathematical activities under the theory of internalization