Math Identities in (Re)formation: Latina/o Students Tell Their Stories

• In Event: 58.052 - Transforming the Research-Practice Connection in Mathematics Classrooms With Nondominant Students

Abstract

When students from non-dominant backgrounds, who have routinely been dehumanized in their mathematics classrooms, encounter pedagogy that aims to involve them in a community of learners where knowledge is co-constructed, does this change the way they see themselves as practitioners and doers of mathematics? Having observed changes in my students’ attitudes, dispositions and participation over two years (3rd and 4th grade) I became curious as to their own perspectives on their transformation from passive recipients of math instruction to active and participatory learners. I had worked hard to prove to my students that I valued their thinking and wanted to understand their ideas. Because of this, I believed that they would have a lot to say about math and who they were as mathematicians. I decided to find out more about my students’ math stories. What would their stories reveal about their math identities?
This study analyzes students’ math stories in order to understand the math identities that they were developing. The concept of math identities can help us, as educators, understand how students see themselves in relation to math. Understanding students’ math identities provides a richer perspective on how and why our students engage with math in different ways. Martin (1997) defined math identity as being constituted by an individual’s “beliefs about their ability to perform in mathematical contexts, their beliefs about the instrumental importance of math knowledge, and their resulting motivations and strategies to learn or do math” (p. 24). In other words, students have deeply held beliefs about themselves and about math that impact their approach to the subject. The identities that students create are malleable based on the teacher and classroom environment (Boaler, William, & Zevenbergen, 2000). They are in constantly stages of (re)formation based on the mathematical contexts in which they participate.
Guiding my teaching practice is the idea that I, as a teacher, can transform classroom environments to see how these transformations might help my students to write very different mathematical stories and create very different mathematical identities. This is consistent with my goal of learning to see different ways in which my students engage diverse ways of thinking about mathematical ideas when they experience shifts in pedagogy and how that translates to shifts in their own mathematical identity.
I will discuss the stories students shared with me, the emergence of their newly discovered identities, and the factors that influenced their math identities. My goal for this presentation is to center the voices of students and allow their words to speak for themselves. By hearing their stories and perspectives we will identify factors that students see contributing to their math identities (in both positive and negative ways). We will also explore the power that listening to students’ stories can have in transforming teachers (Crespo, 2000). Students are constantly (re)writing who they are based on their experiences, so redesigning these experiences can help our students write a positive self and teacher challenge those practices that we know have been destructive.

Author

• Melissa Adams, Blazer Elementary School