Mathematics and Racial Identity Co-Construction in Multiple Sociopolitical Contexts: A Case Study of a Latina Undergraduate Student from an Urban Community (original) (raw)
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In this article, the author presents a qualitative multiple case study that explored how two urban Latina/o undergraduate students’ emerging mathematical and racial identity constructions influenced their participation in a culturally diverse, Emerging Scholars Program, Calculus I workshop at a predominately White urban university. Drawing on critical race theory and Latina/o critical theory, cross-case analysis illustrates that participants’ emerging mathematical and racial identities—co-constructed with their other salient identities—contributed to positively shifting their participation by: (a) changing their perceptions of their and peers’ mathematics abilities, (b) allowing them to challenge racialized mathematical experiences, and (c) strengthening their comfort levels in the workshop environment. The Latina/o participants’ counter-stories support that the sociopolitical nature of identity development and participation in mathematical learning contexts should be embraced because it provides additional knowledge regarding how and why Latina/o students attain mathematical success.
2011
In this article, the authors present the mathematics counterstories of a marginal-ized, non-dominant group of students: urban Latinas/os. The presentation rests on a key tenet of critical race theory: that the experiential knowledge of non-dominant people is legitimate and critical for understanding and remedying the factors and processes that subordinate groups, in this case, urban Latinas/os in mathematics. The authors use data from research on afterschool mathematics projects to provide Latina/o students' perspectives, or counterstories, on their experiences with learning mathematics. Throughout their counterstorytelling, themes are uncovered that relate to Latina/o students' perspectives on their mathematics learning experiences and ways in which they sometimes resist these experiences. These counterstories, in turn, offer insights that shift assumptions about marginalized students and mathematics instruction.
Exploring the Mathematical Identities of Successful Latino High School Students
Using Martin's (2000) framework, this study examined the mathematical identity and socialization of successful Latino students in a small community in the rural South. Positioned in the New Latino Diaspora (Murillo, 2002; Villenas, 2002), I provide a counternarrative to the gap-gazing dominant narrative of Latinos in mathematics education research, which historically has primarily focused on lack of academic success among Latino students in comparison to their White, middle class counterparts. These case studies explore not only how the ways in which students defined their own mathematical identity, but also how parents, teachers, and peers influence students' mathematical identities. The four high school students presented as cases in this study all exhibit positive mathematical identities and show relatively high levels of interest in continuing their education in STEM fields. The students identified being successful in mathematics as innate ability, as opposed to an acqui...
This article describes and explains shifts in participation among eight mathematically successful Latin@ undergraduate students who were enrolled in a culturally diverse calculus I workshop that was part of a university-based Emerging Scholars program. Two questions are explored: (a) How do students explain success-oriented shifts in participation that occurred over time in the workshop setting? and (b) How were these success-oriented shifts related to students' evolving mathematical and racial identities? Drawing on Wenger's (1998) social ecology of identity framework, the analysis shows that participants constructed strengthened identities of participation over time through three modes of belonging (engagement, imagination, and alignment) within two dimensions (identification and negotiability). Given the predominantly White university context, Latin@ Critical Theory was used to help uncover how strengthened participation was related to what it meant for participants to be Latin@. Findings also support intentional collaborative learning environments as one way to foster mathematics success and positive identity development among Latin@ students.
Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 2002
In this article, we present a relational perspective in which cultural diversity is viewed as a relation between people's participation in the practices of different communities. In the case at hand, the relevant practices were those of students' local, home communities, and the broader communities to which they belonged in wider society on the one hand and the specifically mathematical practices established by the classroom community on the other hand. In the 1st part of the article, we discuss how we might characterize the practices of these various communities by drawing on Wenger's (1998) notion of a community of practice and on Gee's (1997) notion of a Discourse. In doing so, we question the manner in which students are frequently classified exclusively in terms of the standard categories of race and ethnicity in investigations of equity in mathematics education. Later in the article, we clarify that in addition to focusing on the continuities and contrasts between the practices of different communities, the relational perspective also encompasses issues of both power and identity. As we illustrate, the gatekeeping role that mathematics plays in students' access to educational and economic opportunities is not limited to differences in the ways of knowing associated with participation in the practices of different communities. Instead, it also includes difficulties that students experience in reconciling their views of themselves and who they want to become with the identities that they are invited to construct in the mathematics classroom. The cultural diversity of the student population has increased dramatically in recent years in a number of countries including the United States. At the same time, scholars in the emerging field of multicultural education have challenged the meta
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2019
In this paper, we propose a racial solidarity praxis in mathematics education grounded in Black-, Latinx-, and Indigenous-led scholarship and their respective communities’ joining efforts to combat White supremacy. Increased solidarity across racial groups in mathematics education could illuminate new ways of nourishing and affirming Indigenous, Latinx, and Black students’ racial identities and cultural strengths. We leverage four frameworks: (1) Whiteness as property (a tenet of Critical race theory) and (2) Tribal Critical Race Theory; (3) Latino Critical Theory; and (4) pedagogy of solidarity, to conceptualize the interdependence required for solidarity work and to expose how White supremacy is maintained overtly and covertly in mathematics curriculum, policies and practices. This study outlines the nuances across each community of scholars, drawing on their strengths to combat oppressive educational structures for students. The authors conclude in solidarity, focusing on the way...
Journal for Multicultural Education , 2018
Purpose – This study aims to highlight the perspectives of one black male middle-school mathematics teacher, Chris Andrews, about developing black students’ positive mathematics identities during his first year of teaching middle-school mathematics in a predominately black school. The author’s and Chris Andrews’ shared experiences as black Americans opened the door to candid conversations regarding the racialized mathematical experiences of “our” children, as he referred to them during the interviews. Design/methodology/approach – The author used case study methodology (Yin, 2009) to illuminate Chris’s salient academic and personal experiences, approaches to teaching mathematics and ways that he attended to mathematics identity in practice. The author used sociopolitical and intersectional theoretical framings to interpret the data. Findings – Chris’s perspective on teaching mathematics and developing mathematics identity aligned with taking a sociopolitical stance for teaching and learning mathematics. He understood how oppression influenced his black students’ opportunities to learn. Chris believed teaching mathematics to black children was his moral and communal responsibility. However, Chris’s case is one of tensions, as he often espoused deficit perspectives about his students’ lack of motivation and mathematical achievement. Chris’s case illustrates that even when black teachers and black students share cultural referents; black teachers are not immune to the pervasive deficit-oriented theories regarding black students’ mathematics achievement. Research limitations/implications – The findings of this work warrant the need to take intersectional approaches to understanding the ways of knowing that black male teachers bring to their practice, as Chris’s identity as a black person was an interplay between his black identity and other salient identities related to ability and social class. Practical implications – Chris, even while navigating deficit-oriented perceptions of his students, provides an example of bringing a sociopolitical consciousness to teaching mathematics and to support novice black male teachers in their content, pedagogical, and dispositional development. Originality/value – This work adds to the limited body of literature that highlights the experiences ofblack teachers in a subject-specific context, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) subject areas that have historically marginalized the participation of black people.
2013
Background/Context: Recent research in mathematics education has employed sociocultural and historical lenses to better understand how students experience school mathematics and come to see themselves as capable mathematics learners. This work has identified mathematics classrooms as places where power struggles related to students' identities occur, struggles that often involve students' affiliations with racial, ethnic, and gender categories and the mathematics teacher as a critical agent in students' mathematics identity development. Frameworks for identifying resources that mathematics teachers draw on to teach are evolving, and emerging dimensions of teachers' knowledge, namely knowledge of students' lived experiences and histories, as well as teachers' experiences and identities, are increasingly being considered alongside more traditional dimensions of the knowledge teachers draw on in their practice. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore the perspectives and practices of two African American mathematics teachers, Madison Morgan and Floyd Lee, as they support their African American students' mathematics identity formation and development. Participants: At the time of the study, Morgan and Lee were high school mathematics teachers in a large urban school district. Both participants were selected for this analysis because of considerable differences in their life histories, pedagogical approaches, and perspectives.