A Relational Perspective on Issues of Cultural Diversity and Equity as They Play Out in the Mathematics Classroom

Abstract

In this article, we present a relational perspective in which cultural diversity is viewed as a relation between people's participation in the practices of different communities. In the case at hand, the relevant practices were those of students' local, home communities, and the broader communities to which they belonged in wider society on the one hand and the specifically mathematical practices established by the classroom community on the other hand. In the 1st part of the article, we discuss how we might characterize the practices of these various communities by drawing on Wenger's (1998) notion of a community of practice and on Gee's (1997) notion of a Discourse. In doing so, we question the manner in which students are frequently classified exclusively in terms of the standard categories of race and ethnicity in investigations of equity in mathematics education. Later in the article, we clarify that in addition to focusing on the continuities and contrasts between the practices of different communities, the relational perspective also encompasses issues of both power and identity. As we illustrate, the gatekeeping role that mathematics plays in students' access to educational and economic opportunities is not limited to differences in the ways of knowing associated with participation in the practices of different communities. Instead, it also includes difficulties that students experience in reconciling their views of themselves and who they want to become with the identities that they are invited to construct in the mathematics classroom.