Os Saberes matemáticos na oficina mecânica: um enfoque etnomatemático

Abstract

Like a silent gear that drives the engine of knowledge, the automotive workshop reveals, in its everyday routines, mathematical ways of knowing that pulse among tools, practical calculations, and creative problem-solving. This dissertation invites the reader to open the hood—just as a mechanic who, by listening to the engine, precisely identifies the point of adjustment—seeking to investigate how mathematical knowledge emerges from the daily practices of automotive mechanics. The analysis is grounded in the theoretical lenses of Ethnomathematics, Freirean praxis, and Cognitive Anthropology, aiming to contribute to a critical and contextually grounded Mathematics Education. Adopting a qualitative approach inspired by the principles of Ethnomathematics, the research explores the workshop as a fertile ethnographic field in which mathematics manifests as a living language, intertwined with contexts, experiences, and local forms of knowledge. The dissertation follows a multipaper format, comprising four interdependent articles. The first article presents a Systematic Literature Review, examining how Ethnomathematics has been addressed in studies that investigate mathematical knowledge embedded in various professional practices. It identifies emerging trends, research gaps, and possibilities for advancing studies focused on the context of mechanical workshops. The second article investigates whether and how mathematics is present in the knowledge produced and practiced by automotive mechanics with limited formal schooling. It analyzes potential articulations with Ethnomathematics and draws upon Situated Learning Theory and Social Practice Theory to understand such knowledge as culturally constructed and functionally relevant. The third article deepens the understanding of how mathematical knowledge is mobilized by mechanics in their professional routines and how such knowledge becomes visible, meaningful, and situated within workshop practices. The fourth article focuses on the mathematical knowledge produced in mechanical workshops and enacted in the daily practices of non-schooled professionals. It characterizes these knowledges and articulates them with Ethnomathematics, Freirean praxis, and Cognitive Anthropology, illuminating their internal coherence, complexity, and epistemic and formative potential for Mathematics Education—particularly in dialogue with school mathematics and the experiential knowledge of these workers. These mathematical knowings, born of practice and experience, underscore the importance of recognizing and valuing knowledge constructed outside formal schooling—an essential condition for a more contextualized, critical, and dialogical mathematics education. Finally, this dissertation intentionally employs the term mathematics with a lowercase “m” throughout the text. This stylistic choice signals the research’s epistemological stance: to affirm the existence of multiple, diverse, and legitimate mathematical knowledges that emerge from cultural and professional practices, thus challenging the hegemony of a single, formal, and school-based Mathematics. Much like a workshop that does not restrict itself to the manufacturer’s manual but reinvents its own procedures, the “mathematics” explored here pulsates through multiple ways of knowing and doing—each essential to both life and work.