This article discusses the role of refusal in the analysis and communication of qualitative data, that is, the role of refusal in the work of making claims. Refusal is not just a no, but a generative stance, situated in a critical understanding of settler colonialism and its regimes of representation. Refusals are needed to counter narratives and images arising (becoming-claims) in social science research that diminish personhood or sovereignty, or rehumiliate when circulated. Refusal, in this article, refers to a stance or an approach to analyzing data within a matrix of commitments, histories, allegiances, and resonances that inform what can be known within settler colonial research frames, and what must be kept out of reach.
This article examines mathematics education as both the site and object of transformation for a youth PAR project in which students researched and evaluated their urban high school in Oakland, California. These youth researchers were trained as part of a sociology course as well as a mathematics class designed to both remediate gaps in math preparation and accelerate students into higher-order math literacy. This study differs from and extends other studies that describe mathematics as a tool for social critique. It considers youth research in and through mathematics as a more ideologically open endeavor in that youth do not simply reproduce predetermined criticisms of social inequality. Thus, this project translates extensive work in critical literacy, new media literacy, and youth participatory action research to a mathematics context.
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