Ethical Assumptions in Research of Mathematics Education: a theoretical essay

Abstract

In this paper, we explore some connections between Philosophy and Mathematics Education, proposing the exploration of ethical assumptions – values – in academic works. This is a theoretical essay that briefly addresses a history of the subarea of ​​Philosophy of Mathematics Education and permeates production that highlights delimitation and objectives, methods and objects of this subarea. We also bring contributions from the field of Philosophy to think about ethics and language, in addition to a production specific to the field: the Model of Semantic Fields. This movement and proposal are justified by the production of approximately half a century of research in Mathematics Education in specific programs and that, explicitly or not, value and induces attitudes, either for the mathematics classroom of the most diverse levels of education, or for the own research in Mathematics Education that feeds itself. Postures, values, assumptions can thus be repeated without further reflection on the actions and motivations that originate them and that, perhaps, no longer make sense in the current production. Thus, we concluded in two directions: explanation of ethical assumptions by the authors of research in Mathematics Education and, also, a possible agenda for the Philosophy of Mathematics Education that seeks to evidence such ethical assumptions in these works.