The different places occupied by the sociocultural practices of Quilombola people in mathematics education research studies

Abstract We analyzed research studies associated with Quilombola peoples, racism, and anti-racism, addressing mathematics education, published in master dissertations, doctoral theses, and articles from journals. We reflect on the role played by research that focuses on the articulation between mathematics education and the knowledge and practices of the Quilombola peoples. The theoretical discussions for this problematization are based on anthropoemic, major and minor science. An integrative literature review allowed us to summarize the findings of several studies without conflicting with the epistemological orientations of the material analyzed. We identified at least two analytical densities: sociocultural practices in the service of school mathematics, and mathematics education in the service of fighting structural racism. The first density refers to the cultural practices supporting school mathematics, with several studies describing the existence and importance of Quilombola education. However, using the sociocultural context only as an element to facilitate the teaching of school mathematics. The second density refers to studies that use mathematics education to combat structural racism since, despite referring to mathematical aspects present in the investigations, the meanings attributed to cultural practices, especially those developed in Quilombola communities, emphasize the mathematical aspect of the situation and include elements for thinking about structural racism. The studies that compose this density are closer to a mathematics education that can strengthen Quilombola peoples and build anti-racist practices, as researchers seem to understand their political role as contributing to reducing inequalities.