Racial-Ethnic Identity in Mathematics: Methodological Developments in Surveying High School Girls of Color

• In Event: Confronting the Mathematics Struggle for Girls of Color in Public Schools: Transformative Experiences

Abstract

In the last two decades, extensive research on racial-ethnic identity in learning mathematics has expanded new theoretical and methodological domains (English-Clarke, Slaughter-Defoe, Martin, 2012; Martin, 2000; Moses & Cobb, 2001; Shah, 2013; Stinson, 2006; Author, 2012). However, the majority of this work has been qualitative, which by design, limits the number of participants. Some prior research has used quantitative measures to understand the function of race or gender in mathematics (Alexander, 2015; English-Clark et. al., 2012; Fennema & Sherman, 1976), yet there is a dearth of perspectives used to deeply understand the experiences of girls of color.

Aligned with this year’s AERA theme, the authors used interdisciplinary perspectives to develop a quantitative survey instrument that sought to expand our understanding of how racial and ethnic identities factor into students’ perceptions of their mathematics experiences. We sought to answer the following questions:
(1) How and when does racial-ethnic identity factor into girls’ experiences when learning mathematics?
(2) What significance do these factors carry in terms of the psychometric properties of the survey design?

The ‘Race-Ethnic Identity in Mathematics’ survey was designed to measure students’ perceptions in six domains: (a) racial-ethnic identity, (b) self-efficacy and (c) identity as a mathematics learner, (d) classroom climate influences, and (e) awareness versus (f) ascription to racial stereotypes in learning. The design of the survey captures three aspects of mathematics identity posited by Author (2012) from a review of the literature on self-concepts, situated and contextualized identities, and the role of larger discourses of race and achievement in learning mathematics, including racial stereotypes.

The survey was distributed using a snowball sampling method. The sample size for the present analysis is (n >100) students, who self-identify as female and as Latinx, Black, Native American, or Filipina. The intersections of identities, particularly that of being a female within these particular racial-ethnic groups, were the primary focus of the analyses, due to girls of colors’ doubly-marginalized status in mathematics education.

Preliminary analysis suggests that girls with stronger racial-ethnic identity measures may hold a higher perception of threats to mathematics identity in classrooms (e.g., thinking teachers hold lower expectations of them because of their racial identity). Further, the stronger sense of one’s own racial-ethnic identity may correlate with one’s awareness of and rejection of racial stereotypes in learning mathematics.

These findings build on prior work and suggest that rather than shying away from race in the mathematics classroom, girls of color are prepared to make sense of how race matters. Moreover, these findings hold implications for identifying better approaches to support teachers engaging issues of race, gender, and identity to make mathematics classrooms safer spaces for students to learn. We also draw needed attention to further our understanding of teachers’ implicit bias in the mathematics classroom, and its effects on students, as well as the persistence of racial stereotypes in learning mathematics.

Authors

• Maria del Rosario Zavala, San Francisco State University

• Nathan Napoleon Alexander, Morehouse College