“Las matemáticas siempre van conmigo de la mano”: Latine Caregivers’ Math Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs

• In Event: Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers in Early Education Pedagogical Practice and Family-School Partnerships

Abstract

Family math engagement, the ways caregivers support their children’s learning and development, relates to academic outcomes across disciplines, including math. Family math engagement is often defined as a socioculturally grounded, multidimensional construct encompassing math activities (what families do), math interactions (how families engage), and math cognitions (how families think). Examining caregivers’ views on math learning is crucial to understanding how they structure their children’s early math experiences.
Math cognitions include the beliefs and attitudes families hold about math. Yet, they are typically examined through quantitative measures that reduce caregivers’ views to positive or negative, obscuring the lived experiences, cultural values, and socialization goals in which they are embedded. Similarly, the value of math is often assessed by whether caregivers agree that early math is important, rather than how it holds meaning in their children’s lives. This approach privileges researchers’ perspectives and overlooks how different values may shape math engagement.
Research with U.S. Latine families shows that caregivers value early math learning and often distinguish between academic or “school” math and everyday math (Galindo et al., 2019; Sonnenschein et al., 2016). However, it is unclear whether these definitions align with the value caregivers assign to early math learning. While studies have documented wide variation in Latine caregivers’ math attitudes (Beltrán-Grimm, 2022; Caspe et al., 2023), less is known about how this variation relates to other math cognitions. To address these gaps, we asked: (a) What value do caregivers attribute to early math learning? and (b) How is this value related to other caregiver math cognitions?
Method
Participants were 70 caregivers (Mage = 34 years; SD = 7.55) of diverse Latine heritage, predominantly Mexican, Dominican, and Guatemalan. Caregivers had, on average, 11 years of formal education (SD = 3.66), and most (n = 41) did not work outside the home. Caregivers completed a semi-structured interview in their preferred language about their experiences with and perspectives on math. Interviews were transcribed and verified before being coded using inductive, open-coding procedures (LaRossa, 2005). Four dimensions of math cognitions were identified: (a) beliefs (what caregivers think about math), (b) attitudes (how caregivers feel about math), (c) value (why math is important), and (d) experiences.
Results and Discussion
Preliminary results suggest that caregivers view math as essential for everyday life and key to children’s development. They attribute diverse values to early math learning, including its utility for completing everyday tasks, fostering communication, and supporting school achievement. Attitudes were not merely positive or negative, but mixed (neutral and positive/negative), conflicted (positive and negative), and complex (positive, negative, and neutral) views. These nuanced perspectives may explain previous mixed findings, suggesting that math attitudes may be better understood along a spectrum. By illuminating the values caregivers assign to math and the complexities of their math attitudes, this study centers caregivers as knowledge holders whose lived experiences and priorities shape children’s early math engagement. Findings will be discussed in the context of sociocultural models of math cognition and the need for qualitative approaches to examine family math engagement.

Authors

• Paola Montufar Soria, New York University

• Genesis Reyes, New York University

• Gigliana Melzi, New York University