Unpacking the Promises and Challenges of Developing and Validating a Measure of Black Girls’ Math Identity

• In Event: Navigating Resilience and Reclaiming Black Spirit and Joy

Abstract

Black girls’ mathematics identity development is an intersectional process. However, quantitatively measuring math identity development is virtually absent in the literature. This ethnographic study used weekly planning meeting notes, field notes, discussions of psychometric analyses, and cognitive interview debriefs to investigate the experiences of an interdisciplinary team with varied methodological expertise as they worked to design a psychometrically-sound measure of mathematical identity for Black girls. Psychometrics has been socially constructed as objective, yet it has perpetuated educational inequalities. Thus, the team used intersectionality to call into question the normativity psychometric rules. Themes of the analysis included (1) the team built upon each other’s expertise to address tensions and (2) the team created a ‘knowledge-bridge’ between traditional psychometrics and criticality.

Authors

• Nicole M. Joseph, Vanderbilt University

• Elizabeth Anderson, Embraced Wisdom Resource Group

• Fradely Delacruz, Embraced Wisdom Resource Group