Building Culturally Aligned Identities in a Middle School Math Classroom

• In Event: Navigating Community Relations in Mathematics Education Equity Research: Insights from Early Career Scholars

Abstract

This poster describes preliminary findings from a qualitative study that seeks to support a classroom teacher to create more equitable mathematics classroom experiences. The study is located in a historically Mexican and Mexican-American agricultural community in California’s Central Valley. I worked with one classroom teacher and 32 of her students. I draw from culturally-based learning theory (such as Learning by Observing and Pitching in to Family and Community Endeavors or LOPI; Rogoff, 2014) and rehumanizing mathematics instructional practices (Goffney, Gutiérrez, & Boston, 2018) to provide a set of grounding assumptions and practices to support the teacher and students. The study uses ethnographic methods as the collaborating teacher and I reviewed research on how to support Mexican (American) students and we iteratively modified instructional activities to incorporate research recommendations and student input.

Guiding Question: how do students respond to activities and possibilities for participation that align with community and cultural identities? The LOPI framework suggests that contributing and belonging are motivating factors for students of Mexican heritage (Rogoff & Mejía-Arauz, 2022), so we created an opportunity for the sixth graders to “help” the 2ndgraders by teaching them. We supported the sixth graders to draft an activity that focused on math topics of the 2ndgraders’ choosing.

Preliminary findings suggest the sixth graders found this activity fun and fulfilling. Eleven of the students said that teaching mathematics to younger children was fun for them and/or fun for the 2nd graders. Fourteen of the 32 students described the experience as “good” or “great”. Seven of the students commented that “helping” was an important part of the experience and 4 mentioned that they were “happy” or “proud.”

While the majority of students indicated very positive experiences, others complained that their “students” behaved badly or that the activity was “boring”. Ten of the students described some negative behaviors as a problem, but six of the ten still liked the experience overall. For example, one student indicated:

I really liked working with the 2nd graders. Everything went well and they were engaged with the activities and they had fun. The only thing I would say went “wrong” is that students kept blurting out answers instead of taking turns. I already had experience teaching little kids thanks to tae-kwon-do so it was easy for me… I really enjoyed this experience… LOL (“Marta”, 6th Grade)

This work demonstrates how repositioning students as “teachers” or helpers might provide a different kind of experience with mathematics education. The students found themselves as capable and fulfilling an important community role, even drawing on outside resources and contexts (like taekwondo). Ironically, they also demonstrated a kind of “teacher” position that values the very docility of students that this study attempts to address. Uplifting community understandings about participation and motivation could support teachers and students to engage experiences that are humanizing while reevaluating practices that dehumanize.

Author

• Salvador Huitzilopochtli, San Jose State University