Inherent Connections Between Discourse and Equity in Mathematics Classrooms

Wagner, David; Herbel-Eisenmann, Beth; Choppin, Jeffrey

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2813-4_1

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Rochelle Gutiérrez (2012) contributed to developing a clearer image of equitable instruction by providing four dimensions for attending to the extent to which learning environments might be characterized as aiming for equity: access, achievement, identity, and power. Access relates to resources (e.g., high-quality teachers, a rigorous curriculum, and an environment that invites participation) that students have available to them in mathematics.…”

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Achievement relates to both standardized test scores and “participation” in mathematics (which includes contributions in a given mathematics class, mathematics course-taking patterns, and participation in the “math pipeline”). Identity concerns issues like the extent to which students have opportunities to see themselves in the curriculum, use mathematics to make sense of the world, find mathematics “meaningful to their lives,” and draw from their own cultural and linguistic resources (Gutiérrez, 2012, p. 20). Power entails using mathematics to identify and work against inequalities that exist in local and broader contexts.…”

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Access and achievement comprise what Gutiérrez (2012) called the “dominant axis” of equity because it consists of “the components students will need to be able to show mastery of in the discipline as it is currently deﬁned” and “measures how well students can play the game called mathematics” (p. 20). Identity and power make up what Gutiérrez (2012) called the “critical axis” of equity because critical mathematics attends to and builds mathematics around students’ cultural identities in ways that highlight the perspectives of marginalized groups and address social and political issues in society (Gutiérrez, 2007).…”

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gutiérrez (2012) challenged researchers concerned with issues of equity to think about the nature of the contexts in which they do research in light of these four dimensions. Therefore, as a researcher who is concerned with issues of equity and who acknowledges the importance of attending to the quality and the nature of the goals of the mathematical activity in which students are being asked to engage, when framing a learning environment as “successful,” I am looking for evidence of both; that is, I am looking for evidence that students are being supported to develop along Gutierrez’s four dimensions or the Axes of Equity while maintaining a focus on students being supported to participate in conceptually oriented mathematics.…”

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a demonstration of this progress, in focusing on Black or African American learners as a specific subgroup that has been underserved, Robert Berry (2020) posted a message, while serving as National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) president, listing several resources that have been published in the last decade that address issues around supporting Black students in mathematics (see Bonner, 2010; Clark et al, 2013; Frank et al, 2018; Id-Deen, 2018; Jett et al, 2015; Joseph et al, 2019; White et al, 2016; Wilson et al, 2019). Studies that contribute to this growing body of work are often conducted in contexts that are framed as “successful.” In fact, Rochelle Gutiérrez (2012) called for the study of “successful learning environments for students who have been marginalized by society” to (1) provide “existence proofs . .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Initial Steps in Developing Classroom Observation Rubrics Designed Around Instructional Practices that Support Equity and Access in Classrooms with Potential for “Success”

Wilson

2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The field of mathematics education has made progress toward generating a set of instructional practices that could support improvements in the learning opportunities made available to groups of students who historically have been underserved and marginalized. Studies that contribute to this growing body of work are often conducted in learning environments that are framed as “successful.” As a researcher who is concerned with issues of equity and who acknowledges the importance of closely attending to the quality of the mathematical activity in which students are being asked to engage, my stance on “successful learning environments” pulls from both Gutiérrez’s descriptions of what characterizes classrooms as aiming for equity and the emphasis on the importance of conceptually oriented goals for student learning that is outlined in documents like the Standards. Though as a field we are growing in our knowledge of practices that support these successful learning environments, this knowledge has not yet been reflected in many of the observational tools, rubrics, and protocols used to study these environments. In addition, there is a growing need to develop empirically grounded ways of attending to the extent to which the practices that are being outlined in research literature actually contribute to the “success” of these learning environments. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore one way of meeting this growing need by describing the complex work of developing a set of classroom observation rubrics (the Equity and Access Rubrics for Mathematics Instruction, EAR-MI) designed to support efforts in identifying and observing critical features of classrooms characterized as having potential for “success.” In developing the rubrics, I took as my starting place findings from an analysis that compared a set of classrooms that were characterized as demonstrating aspects of successful learning environments and a set of classrooms that were not characterized as successful. This paper not only describes the process of developing the rubrics, but also outlines some of the qualitative differences that distinguished more and less effective examples of the practices the rubrics are designed to capture. Research Design: In designing the rubrics, I engaged in multiple cycles of qualitative analyses of video data collected from a large-scale study. Specifically, I iteratively designed, tested, and revised the developing rubrics while consistently collaborating with, consulting with, and receiving feedback from different experts in the field of education. Conclusions: Although I fully acknowledge and recognize that there are several tensions and limitations of this work, I argue that developing rubrics like the EAR-MI is still worthwhile. One reason that I give for continuing these types of efforts is that it contributes to the work of breaking down forms of practice into components and identifying key aspects of specific practices that are critical for supporting student learning in ways that make potentially productive routines of action visible to and learnable by others, which may ultimately contribute to the development of more successful learning environments. I also argue that rubrics like the EAR-MI have the potential to support researchers in developing stronger evidence of the effectiveness of practices that prior research has identified as critical for marginalized students and in more accurately and concretely identifying and describing learning environments as having potential for “success.”

show abstract

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Defining “Success”: Learning Environments Organized Around C...mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Initial Steps in Developing Classroom Observation Rubrics Designed Around Instructional Practices that Support Equity and Access in Classrooms with Potential for “Success”

Wilson

2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Considerations of Equity for Learners Experiencing Mathematics Difficulties: At the Nexus Between Mathematics and Special Education

Ruttenberg-Rozen

Jacobs²

2022

Enabling Mathematics Learning of Struggling Students

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Detailing Racialized and Gendered Mechanisms of Undergraduate Precalculus and Calculus Classroom Instruction

Leyva

Quea

Weber

et al. 2020

Cognition and Instruction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inherent Connections Between Discourse and Equity in Mathematics Classrooms

Cited by 6 publications

References 45 publications

Initial Steps in Developing Classroom Observation Rubrics Designed Around Instructional Practices that Support Equity and Access in Classrooms with Potential for “Success”

Initial Steps in Developing Classroom Observation Rubrics Designed Around Instructional Practices that Support Equity and Access in Classrooms with Potential for “Success”

Considerations of Equity for Learners Experiencing Mathematics Difficulties: At the Nexus Between Mathematics and Special Education

Detailing Racialized and Gendered Mechanisms of Undergraduate Precalculus and Calculus Classroom Instruction

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About