Brilliant Black Educators Humanizing Mathematics Educational Practices for and With Disabled Students of Color

• In Event: Reconceptualizing Ability, Normativity, and Equity: Methodologies in Mathematics Education Resistance and Justice

Abstract

In this presentation, we describe a participatory design research project on our experiences as members of a university-based urban teacher preparation program. A key feature of this program is in preparing teachers to become dually certified to teach special education and a content area. The participants include three prospective secondary mathematics teachers and a course instructor. The research focuses on exploring the conditions that contributed to prospective teachers’ brilliance in designing and implementing Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) in mathematics education for and with disabled students of color (e.g., humanizing disabled students of color as powerful mathematics doers and thinkers (Author, 2017)). We draw on Disability Critical Race Theory ([DisCrit], Annamma et al., 2013) and Annamma and Morrison’s (2018) concept of DisCrit Classroom Ecology to ground both the interactions that took place between prospective teachers and the instructor as well as the methodologies prospective teachers leaned on to support their innovations. In framing DiCrit Classroom Ecology, Annamma and Morrison center W. E. B. Du Bois’ (1903/1994) Gift Theory, which connects to our research’s aims. Specifically, we posit that innovations emerged because (1) prospective teachers of color and their disabled students of color bring many gifts, including possessing interlocking consciousnesses based on their multiply marginalized identities, (2) these gifts operated within participants’ intersectional justice stance of shared struggle (Davis, 2016), and (3) regular and intentional socio-political and humanizing discourse at the intersection of mathematics education and disability (Authors, 2017) occurred throughout the university coursework between participants.

The participatory design research involves a collaborative and iterative method for systemic repair (Booker & Goldman, 2016). We collaboratively engage in critical reflections, discourse, and coursework artifact analysis to construct meanings of our individual and collective experiences. Through interpretive methods (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2013), we plan to collectively analyze data sources including audio-recorded sessions of our conversations and coursework artifacts (e.g., final projects, lesson plans, course readings, discussion posts, written reflections). Prospective teachers’ intersectional justice-oriented innovations emerged in the confines of rigorous, standardized, and institution-approved coursework that support candidates’ meaning-making of the required set of knowledge and skills to be recommended for credentials in special and secondary mathematics education. This research contributes to the pressing calls of building knowledge of sociopolitical struggles in mathematics teacher education involving disabled students of color (Authors, in press), intersectional justice-oriented teacher education programs (Annamma & Winn, 2019; Pugach et al., 2020) and repaying the educational debt owed to disabled students of color (Authors, 2015).

Authors

• Alexis Martineau

• Daviona Sims

• Paulo Tan, Johns Hopkins University

• Cyera Taylor, Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore