Exploring the Self-Empowering Uncertainties of Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice: Narratives from a Teacher Educator and a Classroom Teacher (original) (raw)
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Considering the Social Justice Mathematical Journey of Secondary Mathematics Preservice Teachers
2013
In this essay, the authors share some of their journey as they seek to make sense of what it might mean to prepare secondary mathematics preservice teachers to teach mathematics for social justice. The focus on how to prepare mathematics teachers to critically consider the world around them and to further develop the dispositions to become agents of change has been discussed in the research literature. What it might "look like" to enact this type of programmatic-level teaching at a college or university, however, has rarely been examined. Through the sharing of their thoughts and reflections, the authors hope others might draw inspiration to reconsider the teaching of mathematics courses for social justice at the program level.
Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice: Rejuvenating Students’ Experience of Mathematics
An improved version of this paper is available in Mathematics Teaching – the Journal of the Association for Teachers of Mathematics, March 2015 Edition.
Every Mathematics teacher encounters disaffected students whose experience of Mathematics has led to a belief that it has little relevance to their lives. This paper summarises my experience and the feedback from my students on lessons dedicated to Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice (TMSJ). It begins with a discussion of what a commitment to TMSJ looks like in the classroom. Outlines how its impact was evaluated, before concluding with the main findings. In summary we discovered: TMSJ has the potential to dramatically enhance the experience of Mathematics for students, especially those most disaffected by it. Students enjoyed the incorporation of Social Justice issues into Mathematics lessons. They discovered the power of Mathematics to analyse issues and solutions, to persuade others and ultimately to change the world. In doing so TMSJ undermined any belief students had in the irrelevance of Mathematics.
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 2019
Mathematics classrooms are increasingly becoming sites for investigating social (in)justice, but research on teaching mathematics for social justice remains limited to individual case studies. This article reports on a metasynthesis of 35 qualitative reports of social justice mathematics enactments in diverse classroom contexts. Critical race theory serves as a guiding framework for analyzing possibilities and limitations of these enactments to address racial inequities in mathematics education. Findings from this metasynthesis reveal that addressing race in social justice mathematics explorations provided opportunities for centering the voices of people of Color and critiquing liberal views that camouflage subtle forms of racism and involved substantial and authentic mathematical work. Promising practices and implications for future research are identified based on this synthesis.
Journal of Education and Practice, 2016
This study involves an Australian Western Victorian District High School year nine mixed ability mathematics class learning mathematics using social justice pedagogy. The learning intent of the unit required students to compare their own lifestyles against different families from around the world and use mathematics as a tool to investigate inequality. Although the study’s findings showed that there were associations between student learning and engagement when using this initiative, there were also many individual and unique challenges encountered during the study. These challenges included integrating the study into an already overloaded school curriculum and many different educational stakeholders. Data analysis suggested that teachers who use social justice pedagogies within their classroom practices need to be flexible, highly adaptive and have a strong commitment to achieve the best learning outcomes for the students. Keywords: Social justice mathematics, student engagement, i...
Changing the Balance in an Unjust World: Learning to Teach Mathematics for Social Justice
n 2007, the first Creating Balance in an Unjust World Conference on Mathematics Education and Social Justice convened in Brooklyn, New York (see http://creatingbalanceconference.org/). The conference was a forum for sharing ideas of social justice mathematics education. The organizers never intended it to be an annual event but due to the enormous amount of interest, they planned a second conference. The second conference was also held in Brooklyn with nearly 400 attendees, including researchers, teachers, and students spanning all educational levels from 26 states and 3 countries. Two preservice elementary teachers (Maria and Claire [pseudonyms]) and I, a mathematics methods teacher, traveled from Minnesota to present at the conference. Maria summarizes how attending the Creating Balance conference affected both her view of teaching and of life:
2020
Aside from being one of the systematically arranged disciplines, mathematics is also a social construction that views humans as active subjects in building knowledge through interaction with the surrounding environment. Therefore, in addition to being a medium to enhance students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, mathematics education should also apply the principles of social activity while linking mathematical concepts to social issues. This research is intended to reform mathematics learning so that it does not merely focus on students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, but also improve their quality through the application of ‘social justice in mathematics education’, while at the same time internalising issues related to social justice through the application of ‘social justice through mathematics education’ concepts. This study used action research as the research methodology considering its actionbased themes and characteristics, where the teacher performed and s...
Mathematics Education for Social Justice: A Case Study
Sociopolitical Dimensions of Mathematics Education: from the margin to mainstream. ICME-13 Monographs. Eds. Jurdak, M., Vithal, R. Cham (Switzerland): Springer., 2018
In this chapter, we present a case study of a mathematics teacher in a school in Madrid who identifies himself as an educator for social justice. We analyze both his classroom practice using an observation protocol, and key elements in his biography through a biographic-narrative interview, to compare what the teacher declares as ideal with his action in the classroom. From the observations of his practice, it seems that the teacher adopts an instrumental and value-neutral perspective on mathematics, but from the biographic-narrative interview we obtain both an understanding of the origins of this apparent instrumental perspective, and also many notable intuitions and critical perspectives on sociopolitical issues related to mathematics, teacher training and mathematics education research.
School Science and Mathematics, 2024
This 2-year qualitative case study focuses on one emergent mathematics teacher leader, Mr. Miller, and his conceptualization of Social Justice Mathematics (SJM). SJM is a justice-oriented pedagogical approach where students simultaneously learn dominant mathematics and explore social injustices to take action toward justice. Using Rodriguez's (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 1998, 35, 589–622) sociotransformative constructivism framework, findings illuminate how dialogic conversation, authentic activity, and metacognition supported Mr. Miller's reflexivity about his positionality, which he described as “upper middle class, highly educated parents, white, male,” in relationship to his students' positionality. He taught in a public charter high school in an urban city in the Northeast United States, where approximately 60% of students identified as Black, 30% white, 10% mixed race, 1% Asian American, 1% Latine, and less than 1% Indigenous, with 60% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The article discusses of the importance of reflexivity for teachers and teacher leaders of all backgrounds, and especially when educators of dominant backgrounds work with students of historically marginalized backgrounds. The article calls for further research with more experienced mathematics teacher leaders of various backgrounds and contexts to further investigate justice-centered mathematics teacher leadership.