Care-as-Protest: Teacherly Responsibility in the Context of Mathematical Violence

• In Event: Teacher Care: Working Toward Humanization for Others and the Self

Abstract

Mathematics education and mathematics educators are implicated within oppressive systems that often treat students of color in unjust and dehumanizing ways. What, then, is a teacher who values the humanity and wellbeing of their students to do? This paper analyzes observational and interview data to describe how two veteran mathematics teachers enact what they perceive to be their teacherly responsibility in this context by caring, as a form of protest, about their Algebra 1 students’ 1) unknowability, 2) complex personhood, and 3) historicity. It concludes with recommendations for researchers about conceptualizing relational work and for practitioners about examining their own ethical commitments in light of the slow violence of mathematics education (Gutiérrez, 2018).

Author

• Grace A. Chen, Vanderbilt University