An Instantiation of White Institutional Space by White Mathematics Teacher Educators

• In Event: Toward Justice: Centering Identities, Positionalities, and Community Knowledges in Teacher Educators' Work and Learning

Abstract

In this paper, we describe and critically examine the perpetuation of mathematics education as a white institutional space by white actors. Following Martin (2008), whiteness is conceptualized as discursive moves that frame and guide activity among interlocutors. The paper examines discursive mechanisms that white mathematics teacher educators (MTE’s) employed while working with a racially diverse team on a professional development for mathematics teachers. We argue that these mechanisms served to instantiate an institutional space of whiteness, despite the expressed goal of all of the MTE’s to interrupt sociopolitical injustice in mathematics education. The analysis uses empirical examples from a particular conversation about the design process to illustrate how whiteness was maintained as the overarching frame of the joint activity.

Authors

• Victoria M. Hand, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Beth A. Herbel-Eisenmann, Michigan State University

• Ashley Danielle Scroggins, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Sunghwan Byun, Michigan State University

• Tonya Bartell, Michigan State University

• Courtney Koestler, Ohio University