The College Fix

Researchers will use ‘Indigenous Story Work’ research methods

In addition to the $615,998 the National Science Foundation is spending to help a Virginia Tech professor learn how to cut off healthy genitals from boys who suffer from transgenderism, the federal agency is also exploring how “Indigenous Identity” and algebra intersect.

Matteo Tamburini is getting $16,922 from American taxpayers for his ongoing research on “the influences of context-specific algebra instruction on students[‘] identities and engagement with mathematics.”

“The project will advance knowledge on the intersection of mathematics with college students[‘] self-identity as well as develop the research capacities of the individual researchers and the institution,” according to the grant listed on the National Science Foundation website. “Findings will be applicable in similar education settings, with the potential to promote student engagement in STEM.”

The Northwest Indian College mathematician will use “Indigenous Story Work” in his research.

“Using culturally responsive research methods, investigators will interview former NWIC mathematics students, code their responses, and analyze them to identify common themes,” the abstract also states. “Findings will reveal how specific aspects of algebra instruction affect students? perspectives about mathematics and their own identities.”

Tamburini regularly researches this topic. He previously co-wrote a chapter for a book titled “Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students.”

The chapter he wrote “describe[s] the redesign of the mathematics courses at a Tribal college where teachers used their cultural knowledge and their knowledge of students’ histories, identities, experiences, and interests to create an intervention that changed traditional, oppressive practices.”

The Italian-born professor has also written about relearning how to teach math to reach Indigenous students.

The National Science Foundation has poured much more money than just this one grant into “Indigenous Knowledge.

University of Massachusetts, Amherst “was awarded a five year, $30 million grant — the largest grant in the school’s history — from the National Science Foundation to establish a new international science and technology center at which researchers would work to address issues related to climate change, biodiversity, and changing food systems,” as The College Fix reported in 2024.

Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss has criticized these initiatives.

“The integration of ‘indigenous knowledge’ looks like scientists kowtowing to animistic beliefs and engaging in absurd rituals in order to continue to have access to skeletal and artifact collections,” Weiss told The Fix previously.

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IMAGE: Fernando Veloso Leão/Corelens

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