Mathematics Curriculum Reform as Racial Remediation: A Historical Counterstory

• In Event: Expanding the Use of Critical Race Theory in Mathematics Education Research for the Public Good

Abstract

Historically, the primary focus in mathematics education research has been mathematics teaching and learning. While these are important, there are other elements of the network of mathematics education practices (Valero, 2007) that deserve equal attention. For example, mathematics has been at the center of U.S. efforts to establish and maintain technological superiority and mathematics education has assumed responsibility for equipping students with the skills needed for critical thinking and innovation. However, systemic and policy analyses of mathematics education are not as common. Although some mathematics education scholars are making the sociopolitical turn (Gutiérrez, 2013), studies that examine mathematics education as a political system are rare.

The author approaches analyzing mathematics education as a political system through history. The field has taken the history of contemporary mathematics education in the United States for granted as a story of progress relative to the nation's goals. The progress is not the establishment of a better mathematics education. Rather, it is progress toward a mathematics education that is more useful, more consistent, and more inclusive. The progress is in creating a version of school mathematics that has space for all children by focusing more on creating experiences that support mathematics learning in different ways. However, there is a concurrent narrative describing a persistent "achievement gap" between Black and white students that threatens to undermine the narrative of progress. Equity discourse has functioned as the mediator of the competing narratives of mathematics education’s progress and the achievement gap.

The author argues that both equity and standardization are racial remediation strategies. Bell (1976, 1979) defines racial remedies as plans or strategies that masquerade as recompense for racial injustice. He explains: "Spurred by the need to confront a political or economic danger to the nation as a whole, serious racial injustice is acknowledged and enjoined, but necessary remedies are not implemented once the economic or political irritant is removed" (Bell, 1976, p. 13). Therefore, the purpose of a racial remediation strategy is to eliminate irritation, not to execute justice.

The history of mathematics education reform in the 20th century has been told starting with Sputnik. This mode of telling establishes a compelling case for mathematics education’s role in matters of national security, technological innovation, and international competition, but telling the story this way has consequences. One significant consequence is the dissonance between the story of mathematics education's progress and that of the achievement gap. The only way to account for this incongruity is to tell the story from a different vantage point. What happens when "national progress" becomes nationalism? When the "all" in mathematics for all means something like "anyone who can embrace the whiteness that standardization represents"? The author explores these and other questions through a historical counterstory of contemporary mathematics education reform that provides a different way of seeing mathematics education reform.

Author

• Erika C. Bullock