SES, Home Life, Family Culture: How Teachers Explain Mathematical Success and Struggle Among Diverse Children

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Studies of Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Table 5)

Abstract

Emerging work on attributional beliefs reveals that teachers ascribe underlying mathematical success to factors both internal and external to the student. Given teachers’ beliefs strongly influence their instructional decisions and how they engage students we investigated pre-service and in-service teachers’ beliefs about reasons for students’ mathematical success or struggle. Interview responses from 39 teachers showed that teachers’ attributions that aligned with beliefs grounded in social determinism – the belief that the essence of a person is shaped permanently by social factors. Specifically, narrow notions of culture and stereotypical views of families of color tend to shape how teachers perceive children’s mathematical abilities. Results have the potential to inform how we design experiences for teachers to enhance racial and cultural competence.

Authors

• Dionne Cross Francis, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Naomi Jessup, Georgia State University

• Craig J. Willey, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Anna Gustaveson, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Jeffery Franklin, Indiana University - Indianapolis