Using Black Feminist Thought to Understand the Mathematics Teaching of Black Women

• In Event: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Teachers' Lives: Critical Methodologies and Critical Stories

Abstract

For decades, there has been a call to increase the recruitment and retention of black teachers. Little work, however, has been done to understand the role that black women teachers play in content enactment. This study of five black women elementary teachers seeks to understand how participants’ mathematics teaching practices are influenced by their schooling and teaching experiences as well as their intersecting racial, gender, teaching, and mathematics identities. This study uses the lens of black feminist thought and critical race theory to articulate how participants are enacting black teacher pedagogies in their teaching practices. Implications of this study include further exploration of black feminist thought as a productive way to understand the teaching practices of black women educators.

Author

• Elzena McVicar, University of Washington - Seattle