Ethnomathematics of Negev Bedouins’ Existence in Forms, Symbols, and Geometric Patterns provokes a journey into the world of Negev Bedouins and attests to the beauty and sophistication of mathematics that occurs naturally in their craftwork, structures, games, and throughout Bedouin life. The major focus is Bedouin women’s traditional craftwork by which they reflect social and cultural activities in their weaving, embroidery, and similar pursuits. Their creations reveal mathematical ideas incorporated in embroidery compositions in repeated patterns of flowers and geometric figures in varying scales. The women use ground staked looms, stabilized by block-stones, to make multi-color, repeating pattern strip-rugs in a process practiced for generations. An image of this appears in the book’s cover photo collage. Bedouin men construct dwellings, tents, desert wells, and such. They and their children play games attuned to sand and other specific desert conditions. These activities of Bedouin women, men, and children require mathematical thinking and strategic reasoning to achieve desired outcomes. The book opens with a narrative of Bedouin history, followed by a brief overview of ethnomathematics, and concludes with discussion about bridging the gap between school mathematics experiences and those outside school. It considers mathematically problematic situations embedded in Bedouin sociocultural heritage likely to appeal to teachers for use with school students. The book is intended for a diverse audience from Bedouin communities in different countries to the general public and professionals, including ethnomathematicians and mathematics educators. Numerous photographs document the examples of Bedouin ethnomathematics. They are the subject of considerable analysis and appear throughout the book.

In handicrafts and artisanal products, industry has witnessed both a technological shift and a renewed interest among customers, especially after the challenges and limitations of mass production became evident under the COVID-19 pandemic. This book portrays the worldwide development of this trend, the nature of entrepreneurship in these industries, and the unique challenges and opportunities that entrepreneurs face. The book shows how these businesses are gaining a resurgence due to customers preferring ethical, regional, and climate-friendly options to fulfill their needs. The chapters focus on artisan entrepreneurs' contribution to society by not only creating businesses, but also in terms of tourism development. The book reiterates that artisan entrepreneurs enable crucial cultural connections with tradition due to their affinity to a region, city, village, or community. Small business and entrepreneurship researchers as well as policymakers in the cultural sector would benefit from this book.

The book provides the reader with a multifaceted picture of mathematics education in Israel, put into an international perspective where relevant. It is intended to give an overview of a wide range of topics covering issues such as raising and maintaining motivation, search for excellence, treatment of difficulties, teacher education, language issues, minorities issues, curriculum changes over the first 70 years of the state of Israel, and many more. This includes aspects of research and practice into the teaching and learning of mathematics, innovation, developments, policy, achievements, and implementation with some international comparison as well.

Cognitive mathematics provides insights into how mathematics works inside the brain and how it is interconnected with other faculties through so-called blending and other associative processes. This handbook is the first large collection of various aspects of cognitive mathematics to be amassed into a single title, covering decades of connection between mathematics and other figurative processes as they manifest themselves in language, art, and even algorithms. It will be of use to anyone working in math cognition and education, with each section of the handbook edited by an international leader in that field.

This book provides students, instructors, and lay-readers with a cross-cultural understanding of storytelling as an art form that has existed for centuries, from the first spoken and sung stories to those that are drawn and performed today. This book serves as an indispensable resource for students and scholars interested in storytelling and in multicultural approaches to the arts. By taking an evolutionary approach, this book begins with a discussion of origin stories and continues through history to stories of the 21st century. The text not only engages the stories themselves, it also explains how individuals from all disciplines, from doctors and lawyers to priests and journalists, use stories to focus their readers' and listeners' attention and influence them. This text addresses stories and storytelling across both time (thousands of years) and geography, including in-depth descriptions of storytelling practices occurring in more than 40 different cultures around the world. Part I consists of thematic essays, exploring such topics as the history of storytelling, common elements across cultures, different media, lessons stories teach us, and storytelling today. Part II looks at more than 40 different cultures, with entries following the same outline: Overview, Storytellers: Who Tell the Stories, and When, Creation Mythologies, Teaching Tales and Values, and Cultural Preservation. Several tales/tale excerpts accompany each entry.

This book focuses on elementary and middle school children’s understanding of mathematics as well as the cognitive aspects involved in the development of mathematical knowledge, skills, and understanding. Children’s success in and understanding of mathematics stem from factors beyond the mathematics curriculum. Researchers are increasingly becoming aware of the necessity to consider a complex set of variables when accounting for large individual differences in mathematics achievement. These chapters contribute to how both researchers and educators can consider the multidimensionality of skills involved in developing mathematical knowledge in the middle school years as well as to how this knowledge can be used to enhance practices in the mathematics classroom. Topics include the cognitive and spatial skills involved in mathematics knowledge, the role of motivation in mathematics learning, the neurological processes and development of children’s mathematics skills, the development of understanding of arithmetic and fraction concepts, the factors relating to children’s word problem success, and techniques to promote mathematics understanding. This book and its companion, Mathematical Teaching and Learning, take an interdisciplinary perspective to mathematical learning and development in the elementary and middle school years. The authors and perspectives in this book draw from education, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology. The book will be relevant to scholars/educators in the field of mathematics education and also those in childhood development and cognition. Each chapter also includes practical tips and implications for parents as well as for educators and researchers.

This book introduces the reader to the business of clothes, with flashbacks into the past, business models of today, and ideas for a sustainable future. Historical perspectives discuss the cotton industry in India, Bangladesh, Greece, and Central Asia, which help trace the evolution of the clothing industry during the 20th century. Chapters also discuss fashion marketing, greenwashing, blockchain in the fashion supply chain, social media, sustainability issues, and sensory models. Several business models are explained; topics covered include blue ocean strategy, the unstitched market, the luxury sector, access-based consumption, and ethics. Among other topics explored are the future retail experience, consumer value creation, technology, and the impact of virtual atmospheres. The book also includes helpful case studies in understanding the country and culture-specific nuances of the clothing business.

Mathematics Across Cultures: A History of Non-Western Mathematics consists of essays dealing with the mathematical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Inca, Egyptian, and African mathematics, among others, the book includes essays on Rationality, Logic and Mathematics, and the transfer of knowledge from East to West. The essays address the connections between science and culture and relate the mathematical practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay is well illustrated and contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.

This survey on the modernity of ethnomathematics addresses numerous themes related to both ethnomathematics and mathematics education. It offers a broader view of mathematics, including ideas, procedures, concepts, processes, methods, and practices rooted in distinct cultural environments. In addition, by reflecting on the social and political dimensions of ethnomathematics, another important aspect of this research program is the development of innovative approaches for a dynamic and glocalized society. Ethnomathematics recognizes that members of different cultures develop unique mathematical techniques, methods, and explanations that allow for an alternative understanding and transformation of societal norms. The theoretical basis of ethnomathematics offers a valid alternative to traditional studies of history, philosophy, cognition, and pedagogical aspects of mathematics. The current agenda for ethnomathematics is to continue an ongoing, progressive trajectory that contributes to the achievement of social justice, peace, and dignity for all. The debates outlined in this book share a few of the key ideas that provide for a clearer understanding of the field of ethnomathematics and its current state of the art by discussing its pedagogical actions, its contributions for teacher education, and its role in mathematics education.

In the past century the borders have blurred between art and design. Designers, artists, aestheticians, curators, art and design critics, historians and students all seem confused about these borders. Figurative painting was reduced to graphic design while still being called 'art'. Figurative sculpture was reduced to nonfunctional industrial design while being called 'sculpture'. This fundamental blunder resulted from total misunderstanding of the concept of "abstraction" by the founders of modern art. Comprehensive analysis shows that so-called "abstract art" is neither abstract nor art, but a very simple, even trivial, kind of design. In this book the prehistoric, philosophical, logical, historic and religious sources of the confusion between art and design are analyzed. A new and coherent conceptual framework is proposed, to distinguish between art and design. Nearly one hundred distinctions, contradistinctions and comparisons between art and design are presented, showing clearly that they are totally independent domains. Philosophy of art books are written by philosophers for philosophers, not for artists and designers; therefore they are irrelevant for the latter, especially for students who normally lack the necessary conceptual training. This book is not only for theoreticians but for art and design practitioners at all levels. This is a new kind of book: an illustrated philosophical book for the art and design world, which can make philosophical knowledge accessible and useful for solving real problems for designers and artists who are mostly visual rather than conceptual thinkers. The book contains over two hundred images; thus art and design people can easily follow the arguments and reasoning presented in this book in their own language; images. Lack of distinction between art and design harms both. Design is contaminated by the ills of modern art, while modern art cannot recover from its current stagnation whilst under the illusion that it is actually art rather than design.