Mathematics Teacher Education Toward a Future Humanity: Interrupting All Forms of Domination

• In Event: 15.048 - Is Another Mathematics Possible? Mathematics and the Living World

Abstract

Our project's primary purpose develops mathematics teaching and learning for a future in which humanity lives in balance with each other, with all living and non-living things on the planet, and with the ecosphere that continues to support our shared biological heritage. Our theoretical framework draws from EcoJustice Education and ecofeminist applications on curriculum studies to inform novel mathematics teacher education and development that interrupts dominant "discourses of modernity" (Author B, 2015) and "logics of domination" (Warren, 1990) such as: anti-Blackness, human supremacy and domination over non-human species, hatred towards Muslims, ableism and the superiority of the "normal" body, male supremacy, to name just a few. This framework causes our project's work to link systems of social oppression with environmental degradation, addressing these circumstances as examples of the dominating habits of mind in Western industrial culture. Building upon previous scholarship in which we theorize a mathematics education to interrupt these habits (Authors A, B, C, 2017), our project's methods implement pre-service and in-service mathematics teacher education that first reviews relevant mathematical content (and pedagogical content knowledge) from curricular standards, and teaches thematic units on this content that link the mathematics with social oppression and environmental degradation. For example, in the research protocol, one module begins with a review of the pedagogical content knowledge on fractions and proportional reasoning, selected for its prominence in student's ability to reason algebraically (e.g. NRC, 2001). Next, we teach the pre- and in-service mathematics teachers a unit titled "A Story of Incarceration," in which the mathematics of proportions, rates, ratios, and fractions are used to mathematize several phenomenon occurring in various areas across the globe, including but not limited to disproportionate incarceration rates by race/ethnicity, the design and engineering of prisons, agricultural and human nutrition, and the animal entertainment industry. We teach a mini-version of the unit for teachers and teacher candidates to replicate in their classrooms. Given the teachers and teacher candidates as the unit of analysis, data includes recorded and transcribed conversations during the teaching of the mini-unit and a focus group discussion amongst teachers able to carry out a version of the unit in their classrooms. At the time of writing this proposal, initial findings include patterns in the transcriptions of conversations during the mini-unit. These conversations suggest an increased awareness by mathematics teachers on the axiological contributions they make through mathematics teaching. Mathematics teachers and teacher candidates suggest their concern over teaching a mathematics for a political agenda, while some in the group question what hidden agendas already exist within mathematics education. Facilitators push these conversations towards the goals and purposes of mathematics education. This project's significance contributes to an increasing attention paid to mathematics education that addresses social justice and environmental issues, and is unique in that it addresses both simultaneously.

Authors

• Mark Wolfmeyer, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

• John Joseph Lupinacci, Washington State University - Pullman

• Nataly Z. Chesky, SUNY - College at New Paltz