Writing About Class and Race in Early Childhood Mathematics: The Case of One Monograph

• In Event: Rethinking Research in Early Childhood

Abstract

Many texts drawing attention to early mathematics have used an equity argument that suggests that poor children and children of color fall behind in mathematics at young ages. These texts tend to describe research about race and class in early childhood mathematics as demonstrating differences across demographic groups, while in fact the empirical record is quite mixed. The purpose of this study was to explore this emphasis on difference by documenting the ways that an influential monograph, which emphasized similarities across race and class, was cited. Drawing on 49 peer-reviewed articles, the analysis found that about a third of the studies citing the monograph used the monograph to argue that there were important class differences in relation to early mathematics.

Author

• Amy Noelle Parks, University of Georgia