White Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers and Black and Latinx Students After School

• In Event: Creating Equitable Informal Mathematics/STEM Learning Environments: Addressing Racial Injustice and Underrepresentation

Abstract

Mathematical informal learning spaces are not only opportunities for minoritized students to explore mathematical content, but also sites for pre-service mathematics teachers to re-imagine ways of working with them. Studies have investigated the experiences of White and Asian pre-service teachers working with minoritized students (Leonard & Evans, 2008; Author). The author’s previous study focused on moments of interdependence between White pre-service secondary mathematics teachers and Black and Latinx students at an afterschool mathematics club. Interdependence refers to working alongside of students and grappling with multiple conceptions of mathematics, that of students as well as their own (Author). Left unexplored was how race was salient in these interactions.

This study will specifically discuss how pre-service teachers made sense of these racialized interactions. After all, we need to understand how to support White mathematics teachers to develop anti-racist stances and sensibilities to work with an increasingly diverse student population in our U.S. public schools. The framework I use is nos/otrx (Anzaldúa 2002; Author). Previously, nos/otrx was used to analyze how pre-service teachers grappled with multiple conceptions of mathematics, their own and that of students (Author). But nos/otras was originally theorized to reject social categories and static notions of identity (Anzaldúa 2002). So, I shall leverage the original conception of nos/otrx to analyze moments when race is salient during interactions between the pre-service teachers and minoritized students in an informal space.

The study employed is a qualitative interview method. A one-hour semi-structured interview was conducted the summer after the pre-service teacher’s graduation. They were asked to recall or clarify interactions with Black and Latinx youth during the afterschool mathematics club.
All three White women were mathematics majors earning a minor in education. They were also enrolled in an anti-racist mathematics teacher education program. The afterschool mathematics club was one component of this program. I was a research assistant and coordinated the afterschool mathematics club.

Each pre-service teacher recalled a moment when race was salient when working with students at the afterschool club. For example, Annie over-heard students “putting on their Asian hat.” She was shocked and was unsure how to react to these comments said by Latinx students. Taylor, while recruiting students, was challenged by a Black male, “Are you targeting me because I am Black?” She too experienced shock and shifted the focus to recruiting all the nearby boys, who were not all Black. But not all interactions were this challenging. Rose described a close relationship, and sensibility for working with girls at the afterschool mathematics club, with a Latina with whom she spent many sessions working together on origami and other mathematical games.

This study offers implications for research and practice. In particular for understanding how White pre-service teachers make-sense and respond to moments when race is salient when interacting with Black and Latinx students.

Author

• Juan Manuel Gerardo, University of Cincinnati