“There Are a Lot of Ignorant Students”: Girls of Color Perspectives About Discussing Controversial Issues in Mathematics Class

• In Event: When Numbers Feel White: Emotionality, Microaggressions, and Identity in Math Education

Abstract

Objectives
With increasing executive power that threatens democracy in the United States and abroad (e.g., Burga, 2025), critical pedagogy to support students’ analysis of the world around them (Freire, 1970) to “unforget history and imagine new futures” is important now more than ever. Mathematics teachers can use critical pedagogy to explore injustices using dominant mathematics and take action toward justice (e.g., Gutstein, 2006). However, research has found that white teachers may express fear of communities of Color (Rubel, 2017), avoid discussing race and racism (e.g., Harper et al., 2021), or design tasks that perpetuate negative racial stereotypes (e.g., Bartell 2013) when engaging with critical mathematics. Research about perspectives of students, particularly students of Color, when their (white) teachers use critical mathematics is needed. This study focuses on one Asian American and five African American 10th grade girls reflecting on their experience with their white female teacher’s facilitation of a mathematics task exploring the grave racial disparities in birthing mortality for Black birthing people. This study asks: What do students think of discussing controversial issues in their mathematics class?

Theoretical Framework
I draw on Battey and Leyva’s (2016) framework of whiteness in mathematics education, which attends to three dimensions (institutional, labor, and identity) of how white institutional space (Martin, 2013) operates in mathematics education. Martin (2013) describes white institutional spaces as dominated by whites, excluding people of Color, utilizing white frame to assert knowledge production as neutral, and creating educational models that privilege white elites (p. 323). I also use critical race feminism to center girls and women of Color, while considering the influence of systemic oppression (e.g., cisheteropatriarchy, white supremacy) in my analysis (Wing, 2009).

Methods and Data Sources
This qualitative study draws on one focus group interview and six one-on-one interviews with one Asian American and five African American 10th grade girls who were in a mathematics class with a white female teacher using critical mathematics. I use qualitative thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) and multiple rounds of coding to inductively analyze transcripts, with the assistance of Dedoose qualitative analysis software.

Findings
Findings indicate the girls appreciated that their teacher facilitated the mathematics task exploring the grave racial disparities in birthing mortality for Black women and birthing people. They felt that the task was beneficial for their peers to learn about health disparities Black women and birthing people face. For example, one student commented, “I wish we talked about more things like this for the sake of other students’ education … because there are a lot of ignorant students.” They wanted their teacher to intervene when male peers made harmful and/or callous comments about women dying in childbirth. One Black trans nonbinary student also discussed a mediation they engaged in with a white male peer, facilitated by a counselor.

Scholarly Significance
This study helps better understand perspectives of girls of Color when engaged in SJM tasks and how whiteness in mathematics education and the white institutional space of their mathematics classroom influenced their experiences.

Author

• Kari Kokka, University of Nevada - Las Vegas