"Numbers Don't Lie": Secondary Mathematics Classrooms as (Non)Neutral Learning Environments for Issues of Economic Inequality

• In Event: Playing It Safe in Volatile Times: Teacher Neutrality When Teaching About Trump and Economic Inequality

Abstract

At the secondary level, social science courses tend to be understood as natural learning spaces to address issues of social and economic inequality with students. While mathematics classrooms are less often seen in this way, they can also be spaces where students build critical quantitative literacies to more deeply understand the world around them (Gutstein, 2003). But teachers can view the role of mathematics and statistics differently when thinking about the extent to which these disciplines offer a neutral or objective lens for exploring topics such as the distribution of wealth, minimum wage, unemployment, and so on. The purpose of this study is to understand how public and private high school mathematics teachers from across the United States position mathematics as they take up economic inequality with their students.

Paul Ernest’s (2009) framework on the nature of mathematics guides this investigation. Ernest defines an image of mathematics as “a view, perception, or informal account of mathematics as a discipline and area of enquiry” (p. 46). Whereas a traditional image of mathematics conceptualizes the discipline as neutral, impersonal, abstract, and resulting in a single correct an answer (an objective fact), a humanistic image sees how “even the most rigorous and objectively presented results of mathematics embody a set of values and a cultural perspective” (p. 57).

This investigation draws on survey responses of 485 U.S. public and private high school mathematics teachers and interviews with a sub-sample of sixteen teachers. Numerous questions were posed to teachers to understand how they think about the neutrality of mathematics. Teachers were asked if they strive to maintain a politically “neutral” ground for discussions of economic inequality and whether they think about data and statistics on economic inequality as objective or more value-laden.

Most mathematics teachers emphasized mathematics as lending a neutral or objective lens to understanding issues of economic inequality. As one teacher put it, he strives to be “as objective as possible” and to keep any mathematical discussion of issues of inequality from “being personal.” He thinks about quantitative awareness as developing a “factual, database mindset,” driven by his frustration that “people make emphatic, sweeping statements without quantifying,” but that learning mathematics can assist students to develop “more objective and precise language,” thus allowing them to “argue intelligently with mathematics.” Another way teachers discussed mathematics is as a critical tool that students can use to assess the legitimacy of claims about inequality because those claims are never neutral or, as one teacher put it, “everyone should have a fundamental understanding of statistics and be a more discerning consumer of information because statistics manipulates.”

At a time when taking a stance in the classroom regarding social and political issues is on the hearts and minds of many teachers, the mathematics classroom –one often not included in discussions of teaching social and political issues– needs to be considered. This study reveals how mathematics teachers have complex ideas about the role of mathematics as a neutral or non-neutral ground for learning about economic inequality.

Author

• Mary Candace Raygoza, Saint Mary's College of California