Equity in mathematics classroom discourse is a pressing concern, but analyzing issues of equity using observational tools remains a challenge. In this article, the authors propose
equity analytics as ...a quantitative approach to analyzing aspects of equity and inequity in classrooms. They introduce a classroom observation tool that focuses on relatively
low-inference dimensions of classroom discourse, which are cross-tabulated with demographic markers (e.g., gender, race) to identify patterns of more and less equitable
participation within and across lessons.
This commentary focuses on the difference between a theory of change and change theory, as it relates to systemic change projects in STEM higher education. A theory of change is project-specific and ...related to evaluation. It makes the underlying rationale of a project explicit, which supports planning, implementation, and assessment of the project. In addition, a theory of change is often required by funding agencies as part of grant proposals. In contrast, change theories represent theoretical and empirically grounded knowledge about how change occurs that goes beyond any one project. Ideally, a theory of change is informed by change theories. This essay describes the connections between a theory of change and change theory and provides examples of how change theory can inform a project’s theory of change. Grounding projects in change theory allows change agents to draw on existing knowledge and to better contribute to our collective knowledge about how to achieve meaningful change in STEM higher education.
Background
This paper adapts the four-frame model of organizational change to the context of higher education. We offer the model as a tool for researchers and change agents who wish to study and ...enact systemic change within STEM departments. We provide the four frames in contrast to overly simplistic models of change that have been shown to be unlikely to result in sustainable improvements. As we outline the four frames, we discuss both how the frames provide insight into potential products for change and how they influence the process of change. We provide an extended example of how the four frames can be used to analyze an existing change effort and implications of this approach for future work.
Conclusions
This paper adapts a model for promoting and understanding change efforts in STEM departments. This is a model that can be used by nearly any researcher or administrator to help increase the impact of their work.
This article systematically reviews how change theory has been used in STEM higher educational change between 1995 and 2019. Researchers are increasingly turning to theory to inform the design, ...implementation, and investigation of educational improvement efforts. Yet, efforts are often siloed by discipline and relevant change theory comes from diverse fields outside of STEM. Thus, there is a need to bring together work across disciplines to investigate which change theories are used and how they inform change efforts. This review is based on 97 peer-reviewed articles. We provide an overview of change theories used in the sample and describe how theory informed the rationale and assumptions of projects, conceptualizations of context, indicators used to determine if goals were met, and intervention design. This review points toward three main findings. Change research in STEM higher education almost always draws on theory about individual change, rather than theory that also attends to the system in which change takes place. Additionally, research in this domain often draws on theory in a superficial fashion, instead of using theory as a lens or guide to directly inform interventions, research questions, measurement and evaluation, data analysis, and data interpretation. Lastly, change researchers are not often drawing on, nor building upon, theories used in other studies. This review identified 40 distinct change theories in 97 papers. This lack of theoretical coherence in a relatively limited domain substantially limits our ability to build collective knowledge about how to achieve change. These findings call for more synthetic theoretical work; greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion; and more formal opportunities for scholars to learn about change and change theory.
In university mathematics education, students do not simply learn mathematics but are shaped and shape themselves into someone new—mathematicians. In this study, we focus on the becoming of
dis
abled ...mathematical subjects. We explore the importance of abilities in the processes of being and becoming in university mathematics. Our interest lies in how teaching and assessment practices provide students with ways to understand themselves as both able and
dis
abled, as
dis
abilities are only understood with respect to the norm. We analyse narratives of nine university students diagnosed with learning disabilities or mental health issues to investigate how their subjectivity is constituted in discourse. Our analysis shows how the students are shaped and shape themselves as
dis
abled mathematicians in relation to
speed
in mathematical activities,
disaffection
in mathematics,
individualism
in performing mathematics, and
measurability
of performance. These findings cast light on the ableist underpinnings of the teaching and assessment practices in university mathematics education. We contend that mathematical ableism forms a watershed for belonging in mathematics learning practices, constituting rather narrow, “normal” ways of being “mathematically able”. We also discuss how our participants challenge and widen the idea of an “able” mathematics student. We pave the way for more inclusive futures of mathematics education by suggesting that rather than understanding the “dis” in
dis
ability negatively, the university mathematics education communities may use
dis
by
dis
rupting order. Perhaps, we ask, if university mathematics fails to enable accessible learning experiences for students who care about mathematics, these practices should indeed be disrupted.
This paper uses quantitative analytics to study talk-based participation in 100 mathematics classrooms across one racially diverse urban school district in the USA. Using the EQUIP observation tool ...and hierarchical linear modeling, we characterize the quantity and quality of participation for students across 3025 coded turns, by race and gender. We found that in general, boys participated significantly more than girls. We also found that Latinx and Asian/Pacific Islander students had significantly fewer turns than Black and White students. To interpret these findings in context, we analyzed interviews from 29 district leaders using a poststructural framework organized around D/discourse.
This paper reports on gender and participation in one inquiry-oriented undergraduate mathematics course. While there is evidence that inquiry can better support all learners, especially women, less ...is known about the distribution of participation in inquiry classrooms. Here, we focus on how men and women participated in both public spaces (in plenary with the whole class) and private spaces (with their group members). We found that while many women provided a large number of high-level "why" contributions in their groups, this did not necessary translate to participation in plenary discussions. We thus argue that women's competence was hidden to the whole class, which contributes to the systematic marginalization of women in mathematics.
This paper utilizes poststructural theory to analyze student artifacts that were collected from a history of mathematics course. The course was designed to counter three types of mathematical ...narratives, relating to: 1) race, 2) intelligence, and 3) innateness. To address these narratives, the course highlighted the contributions of communities of color and other minoritized populations in the historical development of mathematics. It also explicitly challenged dominant constructions of mathematical history and problematized their use to further the power and privilege of particular groups. Analyses of student artifacts showed that this course provided space for students to defy innate intelligence racial narratives and strengthen their own counter-stories.
Research suggests that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments are a productive unit of focus for systemic change efforts. In particular, they are relatively coherent ...units of culture, and cultural changes are critical to creating sustainable improvements. However, the STEM disciplines are often treated as a monolith in change literature, and unique aspects of these different disciplinary cultures-and consequences for change efforts-remain somewhat underdeveloped. This exploratory study focuses on similarities and differences among STEM disciplinary cultures, drawing on data gathered from scholars in discipline-based education research who attended two sessions at the 2017 Transforming Research in Undergraduate STEM Education conference. Our analyses of these data help begin to characterize disciplinary cultures using the theoretical lens of four frames: structures, symbols, power, and people. We find preliminary evidence for both similarities and differences among the cultures of STEM disciplines. Implications for change efforts and future directions for research are discussed.
This essay describes the concept of access needs as a tool for improving accessibility in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education broadly, from the classroom, to research ...group meetings, to professional conferences. The normalization of stating access needs and creating access check-ins is a regular practice used in disability justice activist circles, but it has not yet been normalized in STEM education spaces. Just as normalizing the use of pronouns has been an important step for supporting gender justice, we argue that normalizing access talk is an important step for advancing disability justice in STEM fields. Moreover, we argue that all individuals have access needs, regardless of whether they are disabled or nondisabled. We provide concrete suggestions and techniques that STEM educators can use today.
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