Bridging Culture and Classroom Mathematics: Ghanaian Lecturers’ Perceived Challenges

Ethnomathematics views mathematical ideas as embedded in lived cultural practices rather than detached from learners’ worlds. Recent studies increasingly connect school mathematics to mathematical practices and traditions of a particular group. A consistent finding is not teacher resistance but the difficulty of sustained classroom integration. This cross-sectional survey, therefore, aimed to examine the challenges that mathematics lecturers perceive as affecting ethnomathematics integration in the classroom, and whether those perceptions vary across lecturer characteristics. The survey involved 73 mathematics lecturers from selected public colleges of education in Ghana. Data was collected using a web-based questionnaire and analysed through descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Kruskal–Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test). The results showed that mathematics lecturers perceived several major challenges affecting the integration of ethnomathematics approaches in the classroom. The most prominent challenges were unclear curricular direction regarding how ethnomathematics should be incorporated, inadequate cultural examples within the geometry curriculum, inadequate training on how to use ethnomathematics approaches, and the difficulty of working across culturally diverse student teacher populations. The study further revealed that perceived challenges did not differ significantly by gender, teaching experience, or religious affiliation. Implications for teaching and future research are reported. This evidence could be useful for curriculum reform, lecturer development, and stronger preparation of future mathematics teachers in Ghana.