Exploring Perceptions of Entry-Level Mathematics Instruction Among Black and Latinx Women in STEM Majors

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

Abstract

Undergraduate mathematics is a racialized and gendered experience for Black and Latinx women (Borum & Walker, 2012; Oppland-Cordell, 2014). One contributing factor is course instruction. While pre-calculus and calculus instruction impacts STEM persistence in general (Bryk & Treisman, 2010; Ellis, Kelton, & Rasmussen, 2014), Black and Latinx women’s perceptions of instruction, specifically in entry-level mathematics courses, are underexplored.

We present an analysis of four Black and six Latinx women’s perceptions of pre-calculus and calculus instruction while pursuing STEM majors at a large, public research university. Data sources included student journaling of discouraging events as well as stimulus-recall interviews and focus groups around events. Our analysis focused on four events that participants reported as both discouraging and frequently occurring.

A framework of white, patriarchal space in mathematics education (Author, in press) was used to code data for three levels of racialized and gendered influence on instruction: ideologies of whiteness and misogyny, representation, and individual labor. For brevity, we present findings here by using a single participant’s event perception illustrative of emergent themes across framework levels.

First, women of color raised ideologies of mathematics ability and belongingness in STEM to characterize events as discouraging. For an event about an instructor repeatedly ignoring a student raising their hand, Jasmine (Black woman) perceived racialized-gendered ideologies of who belongs in STEM -- namely, “what a certain student in a certain discipline will look like” -- framing the instructor’s behavior. Jasmine argued that women of color, already “anxious to ask questions in class,” are “put on the back burner a little bit with questions or insights.”

Second, racialized-gendered representation in advanced mathematics and STEM fields was raised across event interpretations. Beatriz (Latinx woman) perceived an instructor’s whole-class recommendation for students to drop down a course level if not quick with solving problems as being race- and gender-neutral. However, this seemingly neutral event still pressured Beatriz, as one of the only Latinx women in her class, to “prove a point that [she was] good enough” to stay and defy assumptions of ability linked to racialized-gendered representation in advanced mathematics.

Lastly, events demonstrated to women of color a lack of care from instructors about their course success. In Regina’s (Black woman) response to her journaled event about an instructor (Latinx woman) dismissing and laughing at her question, she deemed the instructor “us[ing] her power… to deter [her] from feeling [she] could do well.” While Regina claimed that such lack of care cuts across STEM faculty-student relations, managing this belittling interaction with a fellow woman of color required more labor.

Overall, this analysis centers experiential knowledge among undergraduate Black and Latinx women to disrupt racialized-gendered mechanisms of mathematics instruction. Journaling and stimulus-recall methods captured more immediate perceptions of marginalizing events than in past research on Black and Latinx women in undergraduate mathematics (e.g., Author, 2016; Borum & Walker, 2012) where such reflections came long after reported events. Such insights allow for more nuanced understandings of instructional behaviors in mathematics and their impact on women of color in STEM.

Authors

• Luis Antonio Leyva, Vanderbilt University

• Taylor McNeill, Vanderbilt University