En/countering Inclusive Mathematics Education: A Case of Professional Learning

Abstract

Despite the push for inclusive mathematics education, students with disabilities continue to lack access to, and achievement in, rich mathematics learning opportunities. We assert that mathematics teacher educators have a central role in addressing these contradictions. This role includes enacting facilitative moves during mathematics teacher professional learning to encounter and counter social forces, which we denote in this article as en/counters. As part of a larger study, we explored the extent to which the use of an inclusive education-oriented tool, developed and introduced during a teacher learning program, elicited en/counters that mediated participants' learning toward inclusive mathematics education. We discuss shifts in participants' conversational content and focus on surrounding practices that involved students with disabilities and features of the tool and processes that supported these shifts, including specific facilitative moves that helped redirect deficit-focused conversations.