Comparing Successful Education Approaches From the Global South and Canada

Abstract

Educational reforms have been enacted to strategically address critical issues facing schools at the local (individual classroom, school, district) or systemic (provincial and national) level. At the systemic level, large educational change movements often present difficulties in the areas of sustainable success (Fullan, 2021). Across the globe, nations’ economic success is strongly correlated to students’ mathematics performance (Farrell et al., 2017). Therefore, the education of school-aged children in mathematics is an area of concern in both the Global North and Global South. Although many Canadian initiatives have addressed areas of improvement for mathematics education in schools over the last 10 years, limited research and few such initiatives have considered success stories beyond the Global North, thus overlooking new radical approaches for the core subjects, including mathematics (Farrell et al., 2017). This major research project conducted a comprehensive literature review exploring three Canadian mathematics education initiatives—Building Thinking Classrooms (Liljedahl, 2020), Math Minds (Davis et al., 2020), and Show Me Your Math (Lunney Borden, 2010)—as well as three alternatives from the Global South: Escuela Nueva (Colbert & Arboleda, 2016), Learning Community Project (Rincón-Gallardo, 2019), and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee Non-Formal Primary Education (Numan & Islam, 2021). Findings from this study can stimulate a flow of ideas between the Global South and Global North, with a detailed comparison between the Canadian and Global South approaches that can enhance mathematics education.