An Antideficit Framework for Mathematical Sense-Making by Women of Color

• In Event: 66.078 - Exploring Equity in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Through Different Dimensions of Historically Marginalized Students' Experiences

Abstract

Traditional studies of cognition are often positioned as separate or competing from equity-oriented studies (Heid, 2010; Martin, Gholson, & Leonard, 2010). In this paper, I propose an analytical framework to understand mathematical cognition by women of color that accounts for their sociopolitical realities (Gutiérrez, 2013; Valero, 2004). Drawing from critical race theory (CRT; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), the framework accounts for the influence of deficit master-narratives about the intellectual ability of women of color, in addition to other deficit narratives about learners of mathematics and their sense-making. The framework highlights seemingly objective standards that contribute to deficit perspectives from which students’ sense-making are viewed. The anti-deficit framework foregrounds the construction of counter-stories related to sense-making that center women of color and an anti-deficit framing of their mathematical cognition.

An anti-deficit theoretical framework shifts the focus from classifying students’ prior knowledge as limited, problematic, and/or lacking. Instead, it seeks to identify ways to explicitly build on students’ existing understandings. This requires maintaining flexibility and accuracy in determining productive knowledge and sense-making, particularly in the absence of formal and coherent mathematical language, and in the presence of informal knowledge and inconsistencies in parts of the understanding (Author, in press). To illustrate the framework, I draw from interview data involving 8 women of color where they explain the concept of basis in Linear Algebra. The women of color participants were undergraduate STEM majors at a Hispanic Serving research institution. I contrast this analysis with a deficit interpretation of their work. The sense-making counter-story resulting from the analysis contributes to a counter-narrative about the intellectual ability of women of color. I conclude with a discussion of potential connections to research about mathematics teaching and implications for educational practice.

Author

• Aditya P. Adiredja, The University of Arizona