Critical scholars have argued that mathematics education is in danger of becoming increasingly influenced by and aligned with neoliberal and neoconservative market-focused projects. Although this ...larger argument is powerful, there are often 2 peculiar responses to issues of race and racism within these analyses. These responses are characterized by what the author sees as an unfortunate backgrounding of these issues in some analyses or a conceptually flawed foregrounding in others. These responses obscure the evidence that, beyond being aligned with the market-oriented goals of these projects, mathematics education has also been aligned with their prevailing racial agendas.
Despite decades of equity- and inclusion-oriented discourse and reform in mathematics education, Black learners in the U.S. continue to experience dehumanizing and violent forms of mathematics ...education. I suggest that equity for Black learners in mathematics education is a delusion rooted in the fictions of white imaginaries, contingent on appeasing white logics and sensitivities, and characterized at best by incremental changes that do little to threaten the maintenance of racial hierarchies inside or outside of mathematics education. Moreover, the forms of inclusion offered up in equity-oriented discourses and reforms represent contexts of containment and enclosure that keep Black people in their same relative position. Refusal is suggested as a strategy for Black learners to resist the anti-Black character of mathematics education, and as a first step in actualizing forms of mathematics education that are worthy of Black learners.
With issues of equity at the forefront of mathematics education research and policy, Mathematics Teaching, Learning, and Liberation in the Lives of Black Children fills the need for authoritative, ...rigorous scholarship that sheds light on the ways that young black learners experience mathematics in schools and their communities. This timely collection significantly extends the knowledge base on mathematics teaching, learning, participation, and policy for black children and it provides new framings of relevant issues that researchers can use in future work. More importantly, this book helps move the field beyond analyses that continue to focus on and normalize failure by giving primacy to the stories that black learners tell about themselves and to the voices of mathematics educators whose work has demonstrated a commitment to the success of these children.
Danny Bernard Martin is Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Section I: Mapping A Liberatory Research and Policy Agenda
1. Liberating the Production of Knowledge About African American Children and Mathematics, Danny Bernard Martin
Section II: Pedagogy, Standards, and Assessment
2. Researching African American Mathematics Teachers of African American Students: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations, Lawrence M. Clark, Whitney Johnson & Daniel Chazan
3. "This Little Light of Mine!" Entering Voices of Cultural Relevancy into the Mathematics Teaching Conversation, Lou Edward Matthews
4. Instructional Strategies and Dispositions of Teachers Who Help African American Students Gain Conceptual Understanding, Carol E. Malloy
5. Contrasting Pedagogical Styles and Their Impact on African American Students, Robert Q. Berry III & Oren L. McClain
6. More than Test Scores: How Teachers’ Classroom Practice Contributes to and What Student Work Reveals about Black Students’ Mathematics Performance and Understanding, Erica N. Walker
Section III: Socialization, Learning, and Identity
7. The Social Construction of Youth and Mathematics: The Case of a Fifth-Grade Classroom, Kara J. Jackson
8. Identity at the Crossroads: Understanding the Practices and Forces that Shape African American Success and Struggle in Mathematics, Joi A. Spencer
9. Wrestling with the Legacy of Stereotypes: Being African American in Math Class, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Grace Atukpawu, Kathleen O’Connor, Michael Davis, Sarah Wischnia & Jessica Tsang
10. Opportunities to Learn Geometry: Listening to the Voices of Three African American Students High School Students, Marilyn E. Strutchens & S. Kathy Westbrook
11. Negotiating Sociocultural Discourses: The Counter-Storytelling of Academically and Mathematically Successful African American Male Students, David W. Stinson
12. "Come Home, Then": Two Eighth-Grade Black Female Students’ Reflections on their Mathematics Experiences, Yolanda A. Johnson
13. "Still Not Saved": The Power of Mathematics to Liberate the Oppressed, Jacqueline Leonard
Section IV: Collaboration and Reform
14. University/K-12 Partnerships: A Collaborative Approach to School Reform, Martin L. Johnson & Stephanie Timmons Brown
Contributors
Index
"I have a deep appreciation for this volume and understand its value for the educational enterprise in general and Black children in particular. Even those who do not share my same sentiments will find this book to be insightful, informative, and thought provoking concerning the mathematics teaching and learning of Black children."-- Christopher C. Jett, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education
"This book is a rich resource for anyone who is concerned about mathematics learning of black and other minority children. Recommended for university libraries and researchers involved in mathematics education of minority children...Recommended."-- CHOICE
"This is a book that I heartily recommend to anyone who cares about equity and tackling racism, and it is a book that appropriately and refreshingly put teaching at its center. The book presents many different forms of research and writing, colorful and engaging accounts, insightful and chilling accounts of racism, and powerful new lenses and theories to consider the issues. This may be the first collection of its kind in mathematics education that brings different authors together to focus exclusively on African American children."-- Teachers College Record
Background: Within mathematics education research, policy, and practice, race remains undertheorized in relation to mathematics learning and participation. Although race is characterized in the ...sociological and critical theory literatures as socially and politically constructed with structural expressions, most studies of differential outcomes in mathematics education begin and end their analyses of race with static racial categories and group labels used for the sole purpose of disaggregating data. This inadequate framing is, itself, reflective of a racialization process that continues to legitimize the social devaluing and stigmatization of many students of color. I draw from my own research with African American adults and adolescents, as well as recent research on the mathematical experiences of African American students conducted by other scholars. I also draw from the sociological and critical theory literatures to examine the ways that race and racism are conceptualized in the larger social context and in ways that are informative for mathematics education researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Purpose: To review and critically analyze how the construct of race has been conceptualized in mathematics education research, policy, and practice. Research Design: Narrative synthesis. Conclusion: Future research and policy efforts in mathematics education should examine racialized inequalities by considering the socially constructed nature of race.
Couched within a larger critique of assessment practices and how they are used to stigmatize African American children, the authors examine teachers' instructional practices in response to demands of ...increasing test scores. Many mathematics teachers might be unaware of how these test-driven instructional practices can simultaneously reflect well-intentioned motivations and contribute to the oppression of their African American students. The authors further argue that the focus of assessing African American children via comparison to white children reveals underlying institutionally based racist assumptions about the competencies of African American students. Strategies are suggested for helping teachers resist test-driven instructional practices while promoting excellence and empowerment for African American students in mathematics. Originally published in the inaugural December 2008 issue of the "Journal of Urban Mathematics Education" ("JUME").
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.
In this commentary, Danny Martin describes five key take-aways and two sets of questions that arose from his reading of "Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematics Success for All (National Council ...of Teachers of Mathematics NCTM, 2014). Martin begins by noting that "Principles to Actions" is clearly a political document that advances particular views and visions of mathematics teaching and learning and per the copyright page of the document, represents the "official position of the National Council of Mathematics Teachers as approved by the NCTM Board of Directors." Martin goes on to touch upon the tone of the document and notes that it reflects a deep and unequivocal commitment to the Common Core by NCTM even as it seems that elements of the Common Core movement are starting to unravel (see, e.g., Kirp, 2014; Ravitch, n.d.). Further, he states that reflected in the Common Core position statement and the essential elements of "Principles to Actions" is the continued focus on equity and the rhetoric of "Mathematics for All" (Martin, 2003, 2011) that was expressed in NCTM's 1989 "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" and 2000 "Principles and Standard for School Mathematics." Martin's final take-away from "Principles to Actions" focuses on NCTM's framing of the obstacles that could hinder their vision for mathematics teaching and learning. He states that these obstacles are framed in terms of unproductive beliefs on the part of stakeholders. Based on his reading of "Principles to Actions" as a political document and considering NCTM's equity advocacy, the following sets of questions emerged and are considered in the remainder of the commentary: Who is this document written for? Who are the primary audiences? Beyond any surface level considerations and possibilities, who is this document "really" written for? Secondly, what are the underlying appeals that are being made to these primary audiences? What are the politics associated with these appeals? This commentary is a revised version of remarks made at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Research Conference plenary session "Turning the Common Core into Reality in Every Math Classroom," delivered on April 15, 2015 in Boston, MA.
