“Being a team of five strong women… we had to make an impression:” The College Math Academy as an intervention into mathematics education

Abstract

This paper, a first‐person account, describes a community psychology‐aligned intervention into a precalculus mathematics class at an Hispanic Serving Research Institution. The intervention was designed because the standard precalculus mathematics class had a high failure rate, especially for Latinx students, which was serving as a barrier for declaration of a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics major. The high failure rate indicates a structural problem that requires a structural intervention. The paper is coauthored with the teaching team, undergraduates who had taken the course, a graduate student who evaluated the class, and a community psychologist. We describe the ways that the new course, the College Math Academy, transformed the social environment through capacity building, providing access to valued resources for historically marginalized groups, facilitating opportunities to critique dominant power structures, prioritizing perspectives and experiences of people of color, and promoting understanding of how various social forces shape culture and values. The course also decentered white educational norms via adapting decoloniality and liberatory practices. In turn, each person describes their experience of the course. We draw on the first‐person accounts to show how they illustrate a transformative, decolonial, and liberatory social environment. We end with implications for how community psychologists can work in their universities to support structural change.

A scoping review on what constitutes a good research culture

“…Interestingly, models, approaches and initiatives for capacity building have been reported by several countries. 57,70,90,103,130,133,159,223,310,352 Initiatives taking place in many countries, emphasising the benefits of learning from experiences in other countries was encouraging to report from the literature. Factoring some of these initiatives, it is evident that academia is confronting the challenges 'head on' to build a more sustainable and credible research environment.…”

A scoping review on what constitutes a good research culture

“…Interestingly, models, approaches and initiatives for capacity building have been reported by several countries. (57,70,90,103,130,133,159,223,310,352) Initiatives taking place in many countries, emphasising the benefits of learning from experiences in other countries was encouraging to report from the literature. Factoring some of these initiatives, it is evident that academia is confronting the challenges 'head on' to build a more sustainable and credible research environment.…”

The sociopolitical turn in mathematics education and decolonial theory

“…Like the previously discussed perspectives, decolonial mathematics education questions issues of race, gender, class, ethnicity and power, yet adds to them by interrogating the coloniality of these categories. It seeks to obtain epistemic validation regarding other ways of knowing and being vis-à-vis mathematics, namely, if validation is found within sites of struggle aiming to construct liberatory and culturally and epistemologically affirming practices (Bhattacharya et al, 2021).…”

“…Other actions taken to reclaim mathematical thinking are grounded on a meaningful redesign of a mathematics programme that takes as a point of departure students' experiences, families and communities, and Indigenous technology. Bhattacharya et al (2021) describe a mathematics intervention with a decolonial vision conducted at Blake College, in California, USA, where five teachers implemented an interdisciplinary STEM and ethnic course focused on mathematics concepts and decoloniality for students of colour and first-generation college students. At the heart of this programme was not only mathematical knowledge, but also access to mentors and opportunities to participate in social projects that empower students to assume a critical examination of power structures.…”