Mathematics Identities Among Asian Indian Youth: The Role of Sociocultural- Socioeconomic Contexts, Familial Inspiration, and Agency

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Research in Mathematics Education SIG Roundtable 3

Abstract

This ethnographic study explores how sociocultural-socioeconomic context, parental inspiration and aspirations play as motivational force and influence Asian Indian students to concentrate their agency to become successful in the mathematics class and cultivate positive mathematics identities. Using ethnography, micro and macro analysis of the classroom day-to-day mathematical discourse and interaction the study analyzes formation of mathematics identities and the role of mathematics identities in shaping individuals’ self-worth, attitude towards mathematics, dispositions, and mathematics achievement. The findings suggest that Asian Indian parents’ mathematics education as a path to upward mobility and higher financial gains. Therefore they pressed their children to excel in mathematics. Inspired by parental expectations and sociocultural context Indian youth applied their agency to attain higher mathematics achievement.

Author

• Rupam Saran, Medgar Evers College - CUNY