“It takes courage to come out and be vulnerable:” Coaching for Social Justice Mathematics

• In Event: Innovations and Advances in Mathematics Instruction

Abstract

Objectives
Teaching mathematics for social justice (TMSJ) (e.g., Gutstein, 2006), social justice mathematics (SJM) (e.g., Aguirre, 2009), and critical mathematics (e.g., Frankenstein, 1983) aim for students to use dominant mathematics to explore social injustices to ultimately take action toward equity and justice. Research has investigated teacher learning of SJM, including investigation of dilemmas teachers face (e.g., Bartell, 2013; Rubel, 2017) and student perspectives of SJM (e.g., Author, 2019; Pinheiro & Chávez, 2023). With a couple exceptions (e.g., Author, 2024; Felton-Koestler, 2019) few studies investigate mathematics coaches’ or teacher leaders’ SJM work. Research is needed to learn about mathematics coaches’ work with SJM, especially coaches of marginalized backgrounds. This qualitative study investigates the question: How do three mathematics teacher leaders conceptualize mathematics coaching for SJM?

Conceptual Framework
This study is informed by mathematics instructional coaching (e.g., Bengo, 2016), critical professional development (e.g., Picower, 2015), and justice-oriented mathematics teacher coaching (Marshall & Buenrostro, 2021). I primarily use justice-centered mathematics teacher leadership, where teacher leaders and coaches a) have facility with justice-oriented pedagogies, or SJM for the purposes of this study, b) support colleagues’ use of SJM, c) solicit stakeholders’ perspectives to promote civic engagement, and d) organize toward justice inside and outside the classroom (Author, 2024).

Methods and Data Sources
Data sources include Zoom video recordings, notes, and transcripts of coaching meetings with the three mathematics coaches and myself as well as the monthly meetings we co-facilitated with 12 mathematics teacher participants in an online professional learning community (PLC) (e.g., Campbell & Lee, 2017) during the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years. Each coach also participated in three one-on-one interviews. I used qualitative thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) and multiple rounds of coding to inductively analyze transcripts, with the assistance of Dedoose qualitative analysis software. The coaches identify as a Black cis nonqueer woman, an Asian American queer nonbinary educator, and a white cis nonqueer woman. I am a cis nonqueer Asian American mathematics teacher educator and former mathematics teacher activist.

Findings
All three conceptualized mathematics coaching as giving and holding space for teachers to ask questions and talk through ideas, where they “set the tone,” but the teachers are “doing the driving.” Coaches described the importance of relationships and vulnerability in their work, with one coach sharing, “It takes courage to come out and be vulnerable.” As they supported teachers’ adaptation and design of SJM tasks they focused on the dominant mathematics, ensuring “rigor,” “cognitive demand,” and “keeping the mathematics at the center.” One coach responded, “It’s the math for me,” when discussing his focus for SJM task design. Coaches also focused on teachers inviting student input to task design, affirming students’ identities (especially marginalized identities), and including an action component of the SJM tasks to support students’ agency.

Significance
Findings from this study contribute to the field’s understanding of coaching for SJM to better support administrators’, instructional coaches’, and professional development providers’ work with teachers.

Authors

• Kari Kokka, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Michelle Cody, University of California, Davis