Public Good and Personal Well-Being: The Emotional Labor of Racial Justice Work

• In Event: Exploring Tensions in Participatory Approaches to Research in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Design and practices of community-engaged scholarship (CES) can elevate justice, resulting in knowledge production that supports dismantling racist structures in mathematics education. As a white, tenured researcher collaborating with Black and Latinx mothers and graduate students, Author 1 finds that CES facilitates leveraging of institutional resources and redefining scholarly approaches to address real-life issues of racial injustice (Gordon da Cruz, 2018). Yet, as others have warned (Gordon da Cruz, 2017; Osibodu et al., 2023), critical, participatory work leads us away from well-defined approaches towards ongoing questions and tensions. We bring attention to a tension between balancing the public good and personal well-being.

Research Context and Participants

Parents Leading chANge & Advancing Racial Justice (PLANAR) aims to develop Black and Latinx caregivers’ capacity as leaders in advancing racial justice in elementary mathematics. In our second year of collaboration, continuing mothers (5 Latinx; 3 Black) led their own participatory action research (PAR) projects (Pushor, 2018) related to the collective vision developed in the first year. Our group is majority BIPOC and diverse in regards to language, education, career, financial and housing (in)security, immigration and citizenship, and dis/ability.

The Challenge

Mothers organized themselves based on shared interests into five PAR groups. Three projects built mothers’ own understanding of issues in mathematics education: teachers’ strategies for identifying students’ needs in mathematics; perspectives of other Black mothers and Black children on learning mathematics rhythmically; and strategies to advocate for a non-verbal, autistic, Latino child. Two projects centered around specific actions: facilitating a Latinx study group for third graders and mothers to address high-stakes testing anxiety; and advocating for in-state tuition eligibility for undocumented state residents using mathematics.

Mothers’ epistemic authority (Booker & Goldman, 2016) around racial justice in mathematics education grew, and so did the visibility of racial injustice in school mathematics. Mothers sought additional forms of support from the university team that made it possible for them to take risks within their local communities. As they led knowledge production and action towards public good, new challenges arose in maintaining their own emotional well-being. The strong social network of the group served as an important coping mechanism, but Author 1’s ability to provide wellness support to Black and Latinx mothers is shaped (and often limited) by her experiences and perspectives as a white woman who is not a parent. Thus, additional emotional wellness resources were provided mostly by Black and Latinx graduate students, including Author 2, who also identify as women and parents.

Discussion and Significance

Black and Latinx women often face disproportionate burden and tolls of emotional labor in predominantly white spaces (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2021), which includes mathematics education (Battey & Leyva, 2016). Thus, mathematics education researchers have a responsibility to ensure that we are prepared to address the additional wellness needs of Black and Latinx families and alleviate (rather than add to) the emotional labor they already do to address racism, classism, and sexism. In this roundtable, we raise points for discussion related to our responsibilities in participatory knowledge production towards racial justice in mathematics education.

Authors

• Frances K. Harper, University of Tennessee

• Francia Iszamar Zelaya Zapata, University of Tennessee