Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice: Reflections on a Community of Practice for Urban High School Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

In this article, the author reports on a study that explored, in part, the developing identities of seven New York City public high school mathematics teachers as teachers of mathematics and agents of change. Meeting regularly as a community of practice, the teachers and author/researcher discussed issues of teaching mathematics for social justice; explored activities and lessons around social justice; and created a unit of study that attempted to meet high school level mathematics standards, while addressing a social justice issue affecting the lives of urban students. The author reports on the mathematics teachers’ growing awareness of and concerns about infusing issues of social justice into their teaching as well as the teachers’ evolving conceptions of what it might mean to teach mathematics in an urban school, of the nature of mathematics itself, and of what their roles as educators might include.

Norwegian and Swedish post-compulsory school students’ perspectives on the purpose of school mathematics: An exploratory study

“…Critical mathematical knowledge presents school mathematics as a source of social empowerment (Aguirre et al, 2017;Ernest, 2016;Gonzalez, 2009;Stemhagen, 2016) that underpins citizenship (Noyes, 2007;Watson, 2004) and democratic participation (Gutstein, 2012;Stemhagen, 2011). It has become the goal of those engaged in what is known as critical mathematics education (Agudelo-Valderrama, 2009;Brantlinger, 2013;Frankenstein, 1983;Gonzalez, 2009), whereby mathematics, focusing on equity, diversity, and social justice, helps students to question, critique and take action concerning important social and political issues (Aguirre et al, 2017;Felton-Koestler, 2017;Gutstein, 2012;Stemhagen, 2016). It challenges the view that mathematics lies outside the moral and ethical imperatives that underpin cultural life (Davis, 2001;de Freitas, 2008;Warnick & Stemhagen, 2007) and facilitates students finding an answer to their oft-asked question, "what good is all this stuff?"…”