Conociendo Matemáticas: Pláticas as an Analytical Frame and Methodology for Being and Becoming With Mathematics

• In Event: Chicana/Latina Feminista Pláticas in Educational Research: Pedagogy and Praxis

Abstract

Objective
The purpose of this paper is to examine how pláticas through their collective and social construction serve towards the co-construction of mathematical conocimiento. Such conocimiento disrupts ideological boundaries of the discipline of mathematics towards being and becoming with mathematics. The paper will present a series of vignettes where pláticas serve as mediators that leverage the conocimiento of everyday mathematics toward a more just and relational pedagogy of mathematical understanding and learning.

Theoretical Framework
This paper is informed by Chicana/Latina Feminist frameworks that center that lived experiences of Chicanas/Mexicanas and thus reshape profoundly the ways we think about the role and centrality of culture and identity in methods and methodology (Fierros and Delgado Bernal, 2016). However, this rich Chicana/Latina Feminist cultural methodological and analytical framework has not been leveraged in conjunction with disciplinary learning, particularly in teacher education and teacher learning. Thus, this framework in conjunction with Anzaldua’s (2002) path of conocimiento framework provide an understanding of co-constructing mathematical conocimiento beyond traditional colorblind approaches.

Methods and Data Sources
This paper is part of a larger study with four self-identified Mexicanas who seek to become maestras. The study aims at understanding how through pláticas prospective maestras make sense of issues of race and social justice with mathematics. Data collection included pre/post interviews, video and audio recorded pláticas through Zoom, and a collection of artifacts and tools both incorporated by researcher and by the co-participants.

Findings
The use of pláticas in this project generated the following findings: Pláticas provided opportunities for co-participants to grapple with (re)membering the history of their own involvement in math and the history of the rich practices at home and in the community. Such (re)membering was inherently relational and collective. Specifically, pláticas serve as a process in the sense that through remembering, they invoke a history with a thought in present. Thus, these opportunities invoke the future, to imagine more just and equitable teaching and learning possibilities. Imagining un mejor futuro as maestras matemáticas is inherently personal and collective, intertwined with conocimiento about their community, and their families. Thus, the use of pláticas provided the maestras opportunities to critically reflect on their experiences with math and through our interactions build new meanings with math, mathematical conocimiento.

Significance
When we consider pláticas as a cultural practice we invoke rich histories and possibilities. Such practice in conjunction with disciplinary learning, can create new ways of being with mathematics. This supports the development of empowering, critical and positive mathematical identities for prospective educators. This work argues that learning and teaching math cannot be disconnected from our everyday knowledge, from who we are and who we seek to become as maestras.

Authors

• Sandra Zuniga, University of California - Berkeley

• Kris D. Gutiérrez, University of California - Berkeley