Interactional Work of Advanced Placement Mathematics Teachers to Support Black Students' Participation in Argumentation

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Equitable and Inequitable Mathematics Instruction for Historically Marginalized Students (Table 3)

Abstract

Mathematics discussions are often dominated by the students with dominant backgrounds. An important role of the teacher is to equitably distribute opportunities to participate in discussions. In this study, I examined social interaction in two AP mathematics classrooms while focusing on the three Black students’ participation. By applying conversation analysis and interactionism, I attended to fine-grained details of turn-taking and collective argumentation to understand how the students’ participation was initiated and supported by the teachers. The analysis revealed that the conventional turn-allocation methods of hand raising and cold calling have critical limitations to facilitate opportunities to participate. This study offers pre-arranged nomination as an alternative, and it also showed subtle yet consequential support by teachers’ gestures.

Author

• Sunghwan Byun, North Carolina State University