Caregivers as Critical Collaborators: Supporting Culturally Sustaining Mathematics Education

• In Event: Creating Spaces for Parents of Multilingual Children to Showcase Their Expertise and Understanding

Abstract

Objective. Aligned with AERA’s theme, “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures,” this study explores how reimagining school hierarchies–through collaborative partnerships between educators and multilingual families–can help disrupt historical inequities in mathematics education. It examines a lesson study in which teachers and caregivers of multilingual learners (MLLs) collaborated as co-researchers to design culturally sustaining mathematics lessons. This study highlights caregivers’ contributions to inform future collaborative partnerships. Our approach integrated teacher professional development with community solidarity, centering MLLs’ mathematics learning.

Theoretical Frameworks. Our work aligns with the principles of community solidarity that requires a historical and critical review of relationships between communities and schools, a commitment to disrupting entrenched power asymmetries through shared decision making, as well as engaging in social dreaming to catalyze much-needed change (Ishimaru & Bang, 2017, Quintos et al., 2025). Grounded on these principles, we adapted the lesson study inquiry model (Lewis, 2009)– a professional development focused on improving instruction through the collaborative design, implementation, and analysis of a research lesson. Traditionally, this approach is led by teachers only; yet this project expanded the model to include multilingual caregivers as partners.

Methods and Data Sources.
This project is part of a cross-site collaboration across three U.S. regions. The guiding question was: What roles did caregivers assume during the lesson study and how did their participation influence teachers’ learning? Data included audiovisual recordings and transcripts of the year-long study group, analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis methods to identify themes across the data (Kiger & Varpio, 2020) and intercoder reliability to ensure consistency in coding and interpretations. The study group included 12 teachers and 9 caregivers from two public urban schools, where 80% and 72% of students were classified as ESOL, and 80% and 76% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch. Mathematics was taught in English in general education classrooms.

Findings. In the paper we will describe how caregivers served as witnesses, advocates, partners, and co-designers during the lesson study. Their participation supported teacher learning by rehumanizing their professional practices and disrupting deficit narratives. As one teacher reflected on her conversation with caregivers:
“For someone who is scared of parents I learned that they can be respectful and kind and not scary. I got to know them outside of talking about their students [...] To understand they are real people and that they have a vested interest in their student. They are human beings and they want to promote education as a whole too.”
This comment illustrates her discussion of her own feelings (being scared) and how the conversations challenged common teacher vs parent dichotomies. Teachers also deepened their pedagogical and mathematical knowledge alongside caregivers, and identified ways to affirm the cultural and linguistic wealth of MLLs and their families.

Scholarly Significance. Reimagining mathematics education for multilingual learners requires the inclusion of caregivers’ insights, values, and cultural knowledge. This study highlights the potential of collaborative relations to support teachers in their work to engage in equitable educational practices.

Authors

• Beatriz E. Quintos, University of Maryland

• Carolina A. Napp-Avelli, University of Maryland

• Monica Cardenas Guzman, University of Maryland