Leveraging Racial Identity to Persist Mathematically and Educationally

• In Event: Racism in Math Education: Research Toward Theory and Praxis

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze how three undergraduate students’ racial and mathematical identities interact.
Theoretical Framework: I use Whiteness theory to understand the interactions of race and mathematics and to understand the resilience of three undergraduate students. Whiteness Theory assumes that the lives of all people in the U.S. are racially structured (Frankenberg, 1993; Frye, 1992). Since mathematical achievement plays out on racial lines in U.S. K-12 schools (Stinson, 2004) I operate from the assumption that racism makes race a significant factor in determining mathematical success as traditionally measured.

Methods: I taught a section of developmental mathematics class to students admitted to the university as “diversity scholars”. This program was established to increase access and support for diverse students. These students participated in an ethnic studies seminar. I addressed topics from the seminar that were also relevant to the mathematics course. I invited three students to be interviewed about their experiences regarding race and mathematics. Interviews were transcribed and coded using in vivo and descriptive codes, then consolidated into themes. Participants included a Latina woman, a Somali-Bantu, Muslim, refugee woman, and a San Carlos Apache man. I am a white man and was the instructor for the course.

Data Sources: Data for this study come from transcripts of interviews with the three participants.

Results: The students’ descriptions of their experiences are developed into five themes. These themes include 1) being positioned by others, 2) being made to feel different, 3) being heard (or not), 4) (lack of) mathematical identity, and 5) positioning of self. The three students have been able to maintain positive racial identities through re-claiming the terms in which they define themselves. Significantly, school authorities often framed these racial identities in negative ways. The students’ efforts in mathematical identities are less developed with none of them defining him- or herself positively in relation to mathematics, outside of occasional opportunities to help another student. This may be related to the ways in which mathematics is disconnected from the real-world and, as a consequence, a less salient part of students’ identities. The negative messages they receive about mathematics may also be more abstract and less easy to directly confront than the negative messages they receive about race.

Significance: Mathematics is often perceived as a neutral. This perception lends itself to belief of mathematics classes as meritocracy. This belief persists despite evidence of racial disparities throughout mathematics education. By highlighting the relevance of race and racism in the mathematics experiences of these three students this study adds to existing evidence that mathematics is a racial space, where race and racism structure outcomes. All three students recognize the value of a positive racial identity in allowing them to overcome racism in their K-12 education and persist into college. While for each of them, positive racial identities developed outside of school, educators can learn from how those identities developed and take steps to support students in developing positive racial identities.

Author

• Trevor Warburton, Utah Valley University