Hidden Assumptions and Unaddressed Questions in Mathematics for All Rhetoric
By D. Martin. The Mathematics Educator, 2015
162 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In this article, I discuss some of the hidden assumptions and unaddressed questions in the increasingly popular Mathematics for All rhetoric by presenting an alternative, critical view of equity in mathematics education. Conceptualizations of equity within mainstream mathematics education research and policy have, for the most part, been top-down and school-focused in ways that marginalize equity as a topic of inquiry. Bottom-up, community-based notions of education in mathematics education are often of a different sort and more focused on the connections, or lack thereof, between mathematics learning and real opportunities in life. Because of these differences, there has been a continued misalignment of the goals for equity set by mathematics educators and policy makers in comparison to the goals of those who continue to be underserved in mathematics education. I also argue equity discussions and equity-related efforts in mathematics education need to be connected to discussions of equity in the larger social and structural contexts that impact the lives of underrepresented students. Achieving Mathematics for All in the context of limited opportunity elsewhere may represent a Pyrrhic victory.
Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Neuroscience
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ac616bed4b11f4097058d9f678c5f1ccc7539b46
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Citations in the corpus
- Access to Mathematics: “A Possessive Investment in Whiteness”1 (2013, background): “In deconstructing the supposed racial neutrality surrounding the mathematics curriculum (Martin, 2003), we can examine its gatekeeping force with respect to access to universities and occupations.”
- Examining a history of failed reforms and recent stories of success: mathematics education and Black learners of mathematics in the United States (2014, background): “…of the social and structural inequities faced by Black children; rather the language suggests a myopic focus on modifying curricula, classrooms, and school cultures assuming there are aggregate mathematical experiences that are beneficial for all children regardless their background (Martin 2003).”
- Equity, inclusion, and antiblackness in mathematics education (2019, background): “…remedying problematic achievement and persistence issues in service to equity and inclusion, the ideas of equity and inclusion in have, for the most part, escaped critical analysis (Berry, Ellis, and Hughes 2014; Bullock, 2017; Gutierrez 2002; Martin 2003, 2015; Parks 2009; Tate and Rousseau 2002).”
- Rethinking Teaching and Learning Mathematics for Social Justice from a Critical Race Perspective (2016, background): “…narrowly on "modifying curricula, classroom enVironments, and school cultures absent any consideration of the social and structural realities faced by marginalized students outside of school and the ways that mathematical opportunities are sitUated in those larger realities" (Martin, 2003, p. 7).”
- Race, Racial Projects, and Mathematics Education (2013, background): “Despite its social justice veneer, it could be argued that part of the subtext of Mathematics for All rhetoric is about assimilation (Martin, 2003).”
- The Paradigm Shift in Mathematics Education: Explanations and Implications of Reforming Conceptions of Teaching and Learning (2015, background): “In the end, these revisions failed to substantively challenge educators’ thinking about equity and excellence in mathematics education (Martin, 2003; Rousseau & Tate, 2003).”
- Learning to Teach Mathematics for Social Justice: Negotiating Social Justice and Mathematical Goals (2013, background): “providing students an opportunity to use mathematics to expose and confront obstacles to their success (Gutiérrez, 2002; Gutstein, 2003; Martin, 2003; Tate, 1994, 1995).”