Using Racial Identity Development to Understand Preservice Teachers’ Learning of Equitable Mathematics Teaching

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Social Justice and Equity in Mathematics Education (Table 7)

Abstract

Mathematics teaching observed in classrooms continues to reproduce narrow definitions of mathematical activity and ability, typical of what Louie (2017) refers to as the culture of exclusion. This culture presents an obstacle to preservice teachers who wish to develop a repertoire of practices that allows them to resist this culture in pursuit of more equitable and inclusive instruction. In this study, I introduce a critical and situated framework of equitable mathematics teacher identity that attempts to explain the ways that preservice teachers grapple with learning equitable teaching practice in the culture of exclusion. Results from one case reveal the fraught process that this type of learning entails and implications for mathematics teacher learning and teacher education are discussed.

Author

• Brian Alexander Smith, University of Minnesota - Duluth