Math for the Real World: New Immigrants' Search and Struggle for Voice in Middle School

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Equitable and Inequitable Mathematics Instruction for Historically Marginalized Students (Table 3)

Abstract

This article examines new immigrant middle school students’ math learning based on an understanding of mathematics as a body of culturally developed knowledge and the need to understand and appreciate epistemic diversity. Based on qualitative analysis of classroom observations and interviews with middle schoolers, teachers, and parents, we find that new immigrant students refrain from using mathematical problem-solving strategies learned in their home cultures. Parents and teachers agree that the learners are hard-working and assimilating well into a new culture and identify language as a barrier to learning mathematics. Learners discuss navigating complex social norms and expectations in the new culture. We conclude that adults develop, in addition to knowledge of epistemic diversity, greater empathy towards immigrant youth experiences.

Authors

• Priyanka Parekh, Northern Arizona University

• Deena Lee Gould, University of New Mexico