Mirror-Mirror in the Classroom: Adolescents' Social Positioning of Mathematics via Personification

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: Cultivating Curiosity and Exploration in STEM: Integrating Technology, History, and Mathematical Knowledge to Disrupt Curricular Hierarchies (Table 4)

Abstract

This exploratory qualitative project examined 23 adolescents’ mathematics personification (i.e., imagining mathematics as a person) to investigate the perceptions of mathematics’ social positioning in traditional mathematics classrooms. Findings highlight 4 themes: Masculinity, Colonial Law, and Ableism were most present in students highly engaged in their mathematics class; and Counternarratives observed demonstrate an absence of social hierarchies amongst students minimally engaged in their mathematics class. These finding support theory of mathematical knowledge socially constructed to reify social hierarchies while also acknowledging the possibility of learning mathematics without them. Future studies might further investigate how mathematical knowledge is constructed in and out of formal educational spaces, with emphasis for deep reflection on the philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of colonialism of mathematics education.

Author

• Briana Rodriguez, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author