Integrating traditional knowledge: breadmaking from the perspective of the six dimensions of ethnomathematics

Abstract

This study recognizes the baker as a practitioner of situated and culturally relevant mathematics. In this sense, it aims to investigate, document, and value the ethnomathematical knowledge presente in traditional baking techniques, using them as a foundation for the development of pedagogical activities that connect school mathematical knowledge to real sociocultural practice. To this end, it poses the research question of how the six ethnomathematical dimensions manifest in the practice of traditional bakers and how They can be transposed to pedagogical activities that make the learning of mathematics more meaningful and culturally relevant. It emphasizes that ethnomathematics reveals the mathematical knowledge intertwined in traditional baking, analyzing it through the six ethnomathematical dimensions: cognitive (the baker’s intuition), conceptual (proportions, time), epistemological (gestures of the dough), educational (oven, ingredients), political (transmission of knowledge, economy), and historical (symbols and traditions). Thus, ethnomathematics reveals geometry and ancestral precision in the noble art of baking.