Ethnomathematics in non-formal educational settings: The Urban Boundaries Project

The push to marry off local and school knowledge has been a growing concern within educational sciences, particularly in mathematics education where a field of studies by the name of ethnomathematics has been producing research around the uses people do of mathematics outside school’s walls. Notwithstanding the good will of educational agents in bringing to schools local knowledges, criticisms have been made on the sometimes naive way in which such a bridge is theorized and implemented. After a brief description of these criticisms, we present the Urban Boundaries Project as an attempt to avoid the inconsistencies of schooling, and the promotion of a non-scholarized ethnomathematics.