Examining the Alignment Between African American and Latino Parents' Math Homework Assistance Practices and the Common Core

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Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) identify parents as a key component to the effort for improving student achievement. However, with its emphasis on discussion and inquiry, the CCSS for Mathematics (CCSSM) may require parents to interact with mathematics in ways very different from their own traditional mathematics education experiences. This is especially true of African American and Latino parents who, due to discriminatory tracking practices in America’s public schools, often have never experienced mathematics in the ways that are outlined by mathematics education reformers (Boaler, 2002; Oakes, 1990).

This study sought to determine the alignment between parents’ mathematics homework assistance practices and the CCSSM before and after a design-based research intervention designed to help parents develop proficiency with the CCSS for mathematical practices (CCSSMP). Specifically, the study identified which of the eight CCSSMP parent-child dyads engaged in before the intervention, and whether the number or the nature of the practices engaged in by parent-child dyads changed after the intervention.

Within a six-month period, African American and Latino parents of middle school students participated in five CCSSMP workshops designed by the researcher specifically for this group of parents. Video recordings of three parent-child dyads collaboratively solving six “rich” mathematics tasks were analyzed using a coding scheme adapted from Selling (2014).

In this presentation, I will report on four particularly notable findings. First, the analysis demonstrated that prior to the intervention there was some alignment between parents’ mathematics assistance practices and the CCSSMP. Second, both parents and children engaged in all eight of the CCSMP after parent participation in the workshops. Third, within each mathematical practice, parents and children engaged in a greater range of the practice components during the Post-Workshop observations than in the Pre-Workshop observations. Finally, parents did not take up the mathematical practices with equal enthusiasm. In particular, some parents were not supportive of their child creating visual representations to solve the mathematics tasks, which is a component of the second CCSMP.

Taken together, these findings illustrate the potential and challenges of explicitly engaging parents from marginalized communities in the CCSSMP.

Author

• Charmaine Mangram, Stanford University