Black Women’s Counter-Stories of Resilience and Within-Group Tensions in the White, Patriarchal Space of Mathematics Education

By Luis A. Leyva. 2021

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This article proposes and employs a framework that characterizes mathematics education as a white, patriarchal space to analyze undergraduate Black women’s narratives of experience in navigating P–16 mathematics education. The framework guided a counter-storytelling analysis that captured variation in Black women’s experiences of within-group tensions—a function of internalized racial-gendered ideologies and normalized structural inequities in mathematics education. Findings revealed variation in Black women’s resilience through coping strategies for managing such within-group tensions. This analysis advances equity-oriented efforts beyond increasing Black women’s representation and retention by challenging the racialized-gendered culture of mathematics. Implications for educational practice and research include ways to disrupt P–16 mathematics education as a white, patriarchal space and broaden within-group solidarity, including Sisterhood among Black women.

Subfields: Education, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6f9c9baf75faeeebedb037232b6d6c637bd2db7b