Motivating Student Teachers to Teach Mathematics for Social Justice

• In Event: New Approaches to the Study of Engaging and Motivating Classroom Instruction

Abstract

Purpose/Research Questions

How does one Black American high school mathematics teacher conceptualize social justice mathematics education? How does he motivate his student teachers to take up professional identities and practices that align with evolving conceptions of social justice mathematics?

Conceptual framework

The Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) depicts teacher identity as a network of intertwined components: a teacher’s ontologies and epistemologies, goals, self-perceptions, and perceived possibilities for action (Kaplan & Garner, 2017). In this view, learning to teach mathematics for social justice entails bringing these identity components into alignment, allowing theories learned through their university teacher preparation program to become sustainably embodied in their practice. Traditional efforts to encourage critically conscious reflection on teachers’ own identities and positionalities have often been divorced in time and space from the actual work of teaching. This case study offers a unique example of teacher education praxis (Schiera, 2021) where the multifaceted elements of teachers’ role identities and practices were not only conceptualized through theory and discussion but allowed to manifest and coalesce through practice and refinement.

Methods

This case study is based on in-depth daily conversations between one Black mathematics teacher and his two student teachers over the course of one semester. The first author documented these conversations through detailed field notes supplemented by video recordings. In preparation for First and Second Cycle coding (Miles et al., 2019), she framed the coding process holistically around the first research question, segueing to the second question. Within that framing, she constructed a thematic hierarchy of categories of the mentor teacher’s statements about social justice education.

Findings

Themes across these conversations had several connections with the social justice education literature (Table 1). Disciplinary perspectives on reform-based mathematics teaching (e.g. Boaler & Staples, 2008; NCTM, 2014) were prominent, as were principles associated with culturally relevant education (Aronson & Laughter, 2016). These themes were seamlessly integrated, acting in concert to push the student teachers toward a consideration of power dynamics both inside and outside of the classroom. Because the school had an explicit focus on social justice, the mentor teacher was able to use social justice as a reference point in speaking with the student teachers. And, given that he shared his Black racial identity with the 99% Black student body, he was well-positioned to provide insider knowledge of what it means to be Black in the U.S. public school system, particularly in a mathematics learning context.

Significance

Recent scholarship has framed teacher identity as highly situated in time, place, systems, and relationships (Nolen et al., 2015). However, little research on teacher education has embraced the situatedness of teacher identity development (Souto-Manning & Martell, 2019). Learning to teach through field experiences is a key period for new teachers as they form their teacher identity, and this learning is inextricable from the context in which it happens. By leveraging aspects of the school context and his own teacher identity, the mentor teacher worked to motivate and equip the student teachers to teach secondary mathematics for social justice.

Authors

• Melody Ruth Wilson, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Karin Brown, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Bautista, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Allison Zengilowski, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jamaal Matthews, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author