Persisting Racialized Discourses and New Equity Demands for Mathematics Teacher Education

• In Event: Exploring the Role of Borders in Mathematics Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

Much work around race and identities in mathematics education, while often centering African-American boys and/or Latinx students, has shown that racialized narratives have consequences not only for the learning of students, but also for students’ identities as doers of mathematics. This paper falls within this scholarly work, focused on racialized narratives of students’ experiences, from the perspective of students belonging to varying racial categories.

In this study, a lens that highlight processes of racialization, like Critical Race Theory (CRT), in tandem with sociocultural theories of learning, is necessary to understand both that learning and identities are located and negotiated within social and cultural contexts, and that these contexts are always racialized. In other words, sociocultural theory along with CRT helps us to view all spaces and learning contexts as racialized, as well as affirm and examine the presence of power and race, to uncover the racialized discourses of students as they describe their experiences and emerging identities while learning mathematics. Thus, in this paper, through these lenses, I aim to center and privilege the racialized narratives of students in a classroom characterized by high-quality implementation of ambitious and equity-oriented instruction. The overall purpose of this paper is to look closely within this mathematics classroom context to hear from students in their own words, and to understand and uncover some ways in which a classroom teacher can support students to negotiate and navigate their racial identities while learning mathematics.

I have centered my analysis on six focal students who identified as girls of color, enrolled in an AP Statistics classroom that is atypically diverse in terms of the race, yet typical in terms of being taught by a white woman teacher. I conducted and audio-recorded semi-structured interviews with each of these student participants, and with the classroom teacher. Additionally, I observed whole class periods as well as portions of class periods where students were working in groups, on a biweekly basis, for a total of 23 hours, during a period of about six months.

Findings indicate that even within a classroom context that reflects equity-oriented instruction and is organized to support students’ academic identities and mathematics learning, this classroom persists to be a site of racialized discourse on how students are positioned as doers of mathematics in relation to how they racially identify or are identified by others. These findings are discussed, paying close attention to the implications for teachers and teacher education. Particularly, I suggest that as teachers it is necessary but not sufficient that we adopt many of this classroom teacher’s practices in support of students. At the same time, as teacher educators we can support teachers to inquire into their own identities vis-à-vis their students’, to recognize the salience of race and racism for mathematics teaching and learning, to engage with students in conversations around race and racism, and to disrupt assumptions regarding ability in mathematics.

Author

• Mahtab Nazemi, Thompson Rivers University