Why Theorizing Health Matters for Mathematics Education

• In Event: Redressing Health Inequities in Science and Mathematics Education

Abstract

A recent webinar from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) called for teachers to “center the health of children” as a pedagogical strategy to recruit and secure student interest in school mathematics during COVID-19 (Barnes et al., 2020). While well-intentioned, these strategies were silent on racialized health disparities, despite suggestions to use COVID-19-related media in the classroom. Alternatives that do acknowledge systemic racism and violence also advance theories of health that require scrutiny as well. For example, universalizing statements about how mathematics should be experienced by “all” with “joy,” “wonder,” and “natural curiosity” for a “positive mathematical identity” (Wilkerson & Berry, 2020) are also theories about health. However, little scholarship in mathematics education supports inquiry into how such pronouncements draw from theories of health and/or pathology (cf. Yolcu & Popkewitz, 2019).

This paper, then, seeks to build a bridge between theorizing health in cross-disciplinary scholarship with mathematics education. Drawing from curriculum studies and social epidemiology, we examine recent discourses in mathematics education with respect to implicit theories about who appears healthy, in ‘need’ of health and/or disease prevention, and who is made abject or invisible by implicit assumptions about ‘healthy’ mathematical bodies (Yolcu & Popkewitz, 2019; Author & Author, under review). A central argument is that greater vigilance is needed to avoid problematic histories of attempts to remediate the hygiene, nutrition, or lifestyle choices ascribed to students from marginalized groups, which have often stigmatized families, imposed Euro-American health norms, and displaced access to content elevated as necessary for entry into STEM fields (Medin & Bang, 2014; Yolcu & Popkewitz, 2019). Second, this paper asks what making theories of health explicit may offer to mathematics education research. Here, we offer a contrasting perspective on a subject frequently taken as antithetical to concerns with the body, emotions, and culture (Roth & Walshaw, 2019), highlighting some of the deeply problematic ways the body, emotions, and culture have been recruited over roughly 100 years of U.S. mathematics education reform (Author, 2019).

To guide our analysis, we examine recent NCTM webinars and other online resources responding to COVID-19 that include concerns for racialized health disparities and equitable mathematics education. We supplement our analysis with excerpts from a larger review of research and practitioner journals and policy documents (e.g., The Mathematics Teacher, The Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Educational Studies in Mathematics, NCTM Yearbooks and Standards).

Overall, we argue that how health concerns and disparities are theorized in mathematics education matters—whether as health outcomes (e.g., well-paying jobs, access to healthcare, clean environments, democratic participation) (e.g., Tate, 2008); dynamic, attributional, and/or bio-psychological notions of well-being, healing, and/or flourishing (e.g., Boaler, 2015); or, as metonym and metaphor (e.g., healthy mathematics education system, healthy classroom practices) (e.g., Averill, 2012). More specifically, we claim that while emphasizing health concerns and seeking to address disparities holds much promise, caution is needed to avoid reinserting rank-ordered productions of difference and neutral(-ized) notions of school mathematics under the auspices of health promotion and harm prevention.

Authors

• Ryan Ziols, Georgia State University

• Abhinav Ghosh, Harvard University