Positioning and Positioned Apart: Mathematics Learning as Becoming Undesirable

Abstract

Neoliberal logics, a form of racial capitalism, adjudicate children as smart, able, and desirable (or not) in schools. I explore the social processes and structural arrangements by which such logics position a Latina mathematics student as “undesirable” in her class. Drawing on data collected over a year, the analysis lays bare how undesirability is both a requirement of neoliberalism and an emergent position that she, her low‐track class, and her school come to occupy.