What Mathematics Education Might Learn from the Work of Well-Respected African American Mathematics Teachers in Urban Schools

Abstract

Background/Context This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers’ experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers’ content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of, and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools.

Homeplace: Black Teachers Creating Space for Black Students in Mathematics Classrooms

“…However, before discussing the results in relation to existing literature, we do want to note three main limitations of the study. First, we were not able to use community nominations to select successful mathematics teachers of Black students as was done in Clark, Chazan, and colleagues’ work (Birky et al, 2013; Chazan et al, 2013; Clark et al, 2013; Johnson et al, 2013). This was due to the project focusing on secondary analysis of classroom videos.…”

“…In other words, Black teachers represent a diverse group of practitioners that cannot be essentialized. In line with Chazan and colleagues (2013), we aim to challenge deficit narratives about urban schools, which frame them as failing and defective. Instead, this research positions the practice of urban Black mathematics teachers as something to learn from and emulate.…”

“…However, only recently has research shifted to examine Black mathematics teachers to understand their perspectives and roles in classrooms (Clark et al, 2013;Frank, 2019). The majority of this work has been published in the last decade (Clark et al, 2009;Davis et al, 2013;Frank, 2019;Frank et al, 2018), put forth in dissertations (e.g., Frank, 2013;Leavitt, 2010;Peterek, 2009), or published in a single special issue of Teachers College Record (Birky et al, 2013;Chazan et al, 2013;Clark et al, 2013;Johnson et al, 2013). However, before detailing what this recent research has detailed about Black mathematics teachers, we want to clarify the perspective this paper takes on Black teachers.…”

Successful Black Mathematics Teachers Building Collectivity, Autonomy, and Mathematics Expertise of Their Black Girls

“…Additionally, their forms of instruction shift the traditional mathematics logic about learning focused on repeating procedures to one of student meaning-making. Interestingly, Floyd Lee, another mathematics teacher discussed in the same special issue of Teachers College Record (Birky et al, 2013; Chazan et al, 2013; Clark, Badertscher, et al, 2013; Johnson et al, 2013), focused more on procedures and abstract mathematics. Although Floyd Lee did not necessarily provide an alternative logic in this way, we mention him to make plain that successful Black mathematics teachers might challenge certain traditional logics while aligning with others.…”

Equity-Directed Instructional Practices: Beyond the Dominant Perspective

“…School segregation-currently, accelerated by neoliberal processes of gentrification-is confluent with inequalities in teacher qualifications, experience, and turnover rates; advanced course offerings; money spent per student and condition of facilities; as well as deficit orientations to students and their families and communities (Anderson, 2014;Kitchen & Berk, 2016;Lipman, 2016;Martin & Larnell, 2013). Additionally, there is a mismatch between the students in urban schools and a teaching force that is largely White and middle-class (Chazan, Brantlinger, Clark, & Edwards, 2013;Martin, 2007). Despite these structural and systemic inequalities, if school achievement falls short compared to "better" resourced schools (often White, suburban schools), differences are then typically at-solving teachers from adopting new instructional practices that are proposed to further equity (e.g., Stinson, 2006), engaging in processes of reflection about equity (e.g., Rousseau & Tate, 2003), and confronting fears of people of color to learn about students and their communities (e.g., Aguirre, 2009).…”