Persisting Racialized Discourses Pose New Equity Demands for Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter draws on critical race and sociocultural theories of learning and identity to center and privilege the racialized narratives of six girls of color who were enrolled in an AP Statistics classroom, characterized by high-quality implementation of ambitious and equity-oriented instruction. Data includes interviews with focal students, an interview with the teacher, and 6 months of classroom observations. The purpose of this chapter is to look closely within this mathematics classroom context to understand and uncover some ways in which a classroom teacher can support students to negotiate and navigate their racial identities while learning mathematics. Findings indicate that even within a classroom context that reflects equity-oriented instruction and is organized to support students’ academic identities and mathematics learning, this classroom persists to be a site of racialized discourse on how students are positioned as doers of mathematics in relation to how they racially identify or are identified by others. These findings are discussed, paying close attention to the implications for teachers and teacher educators. Particularly, I suggest that as teachers, it is necessary but not sufficient that we adopt many of this classroom teacher’s practices in support of students. At the same time, as teacher educators, we need to support teachers to inquire into their own identities vis-à-vis their students’, and the salience of race and racism for mathematics teaching and learning, to engage with students in conversations around race and racism, and to disrupt assumptions regarding ability in mathematics.