• The Mathematical Education
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.161-171
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• 2012

Generally mathematics is regarded as a subtle subject to grasp their true meaning. And teacher's personal conceptions of mathematics influence greatly on the teaching and learning of mathematics. More over often teachers confess their difficulties in explaining the true nature of mathematics. In this paper, applying the theory of epistemology, we tried to search factors that must be counted important when trying to understand the true nature of mathematics. As results, we identified five characteristics of mathematical knowledge such as logical reasoning, abstractive concept, mathematical representation, systematical structure, and axiomatic validation. Next, we tried to investigate math education major students' conception of mathematics using these items. To proceed this research we asked 51 students from three Universities to answer their opinion on 'What do you think is mathematics?'. Analysing their answers in the light of the above five items, we got the following facts. 1. Only 38% of the students regarded mathematics as one of the five items, which can be considered to reveal students' low concern about the basic nature of mathematics. 2. The status of students' responses to the question were greatly different among the three Universities. This shows that mathematics professors need to lead students to have concern about the true nature of mathematics.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.295-315
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyse the ethical basis of two influential global citizenship idea - Rawls' liberal approach and cosmopolitan republicanism - as a theory on global justice. In the aspect of deontology, Rawls' view has the limit not to reflect reciprocal obligation and duty on civil right in the era of economic globalization that inequality has been structured. But cosmopolitan republicanism has the basis of deontological justification because advocates the realization of anti-domination principle at global level. In the aspect of utilitarianism, Rawls attempts to justify the logic rejecting redistribution intra nations. But cosmopolitan republicanism has the potential to decrease maleficence at global level and to increase utility level through overcoming the structured sacrifice of the citizens of developing countries.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.263-279
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• 2015

The introduction of real numbers is one of the most difficult steps in the teaching of school mathematics since the mathematical justification of the extension from rational to real numbers requires the completeness property. The author elucidated what questions about real numbers can be unanswered as the "institutional didactic void" in school mathematics defining real numbers as the union of the rational and irrational numbers. The pre-service teachers' explanations on the extension from rational to real numbers and the raison d'$\hat{e}$tre of arbitrary non-recurring decimals showed the superficial and fragmentary understanding of real numbers. Connecting school mathematics to university mathematics via the didactic void, the author discussed how pre-service teachers could break the illusion of transparency about the real number.