“Is It Equitable?”: Math Leveling & Whiteness As Property In A Diversifying District

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Saturday 1:45 pm
  In Poster Session: Division G: Section 4-Policies, Mattering, and Praxis Poster Session

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to ask how dominant understandings of equity in mathematics reinforce/reproduce whiteness as property within a predominantly white school district. The study consists of discourse analysis of one school year’s School Committee meetings, focusing on the debate over leveling math courses. We find that the district’s discourse is one of “consumer citizenship,” which teaches townspeople to expect a “return on investment” in their schools. As a result, district leadership is incentivized to enact policies that raise the school’s ranking and positively impact local property values – at the expense of equity. This, we argue, demonstrates how mathematics courses in this district have become a mechanism through which whiteness as property, and white supremacy, is reproduced.

Authors

• Briana Markoff, University of Maine at Farmington

• Sheila Orr, University of Tennessee